


Living Dead Girl

by lexwing



Category: Twilight (Movies), Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Childhood, Childhood Friends, F/M, Gen, Growing Up, Post-Breaking Dawn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:35:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 37,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23383132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lexwing/pseuds/lexwing
Summary: More than three years after the events of Breaking Dawn, Renesmee “Nessie” Cullen appears to be ten years old. She has all the problems of other kids that age: homework, overprotective parents, and a desperate urge to fit in. But she also has some unique problems: she’s half-vampire, and half-human, and her best friend is a shape-shifter five times her age.When a strange woman arrives in Forks, Nessie learns firsthand that she must fight to protect her loved ones, and what her unique heritage will mean for her future.
Relationships: Alice Cullen/Jasper Hale, Carlisle Cullen/Esme Cullen, Edward Cullen/Bella Swan, Emmett Cullen/Rosalie Hale
Comments: 2
Kudos: 27





	1. Secrets and White Lies

**Author's Note:**

> 2020 notes: nothing like being stuck at home to get you motivated to transfer over old fanfiction. This one was originally on Twlilighted.net. Hey, does anyone find it ironic that Edward Cullen "died" in the 1918 pandemic and we're back in another panedmic in 2020? No? Just me?  
> Original author's note: Author's note: Most fanfics about Nessie jump ahead to her adult relationship with Jacob, so I feel a bit like I'm working in the dark. But I'm going to try and stay in canon as best I can, based on what a ten-year-old Nessie might think and feel. Feedback would much appreciated!

I drew my fingers back and forth in the rocky sand of La Push beach, making squiggles and random patterns, hearts and clouds.

I didn't get to come here very often, even on gloomy days like this early October afternoon. My family steered clear of this particular beach, more out of habit than anything else. There had been bad blood many years ago between the Cullens and the Quileutes, my mother had explained. I didn't really understand that-the two sides seemed to get along well enough now. And for as long as I could remember I had been welcomed here.

Usually I came down to spend the day with my friend Jacob. Jake was my mom's age, but to me he was like my big brother and my uncle rolled into one. He always had a new game to play, or, better yet, was up for a long, hard run in the forests that surrounded La Push. But today I had come down to the Quileute Reservation with my grandpa, Charlie, to visit Sue Clearwater.

I frowned a bit at one of the hearts I had drawn in the sand. Sue Clearwater was the closest thing to a grandmother I had on that side of my family, but she and Charlie kept refusing to make it official. In fact, they were the least mushy couple I knew. They wouldn't even kiss in front of me, which most of the time I really appreciated. My parents kissed way too much when they thought I wasn't looking.

That didn't use to bother me, but lately it was making me squirm. It was kind of... _gross_ to see adults do that.

But in this case it was really too bad, because my Aunt Alice kept offering to plan Charlie and Sue's wedding, and I knew I'd be a flower girl.

I really wanted to be a flower girl, just once, before I got too big and too old.

That was why I had volunteered to help Jacob's friend, Quil Ateara, take little Claire Lightfoot down to the rocky beach. Maybe some grownup alone time would do Charlie and Sue good. There were only a few other people out, most of them further down the beach where the surf was better.

I had played with Claire a bit, when we were closer to the same size. She had been spoiled then, and she was spoiled now. She kept dancing across the sand, spinning in circles, crying, "Watch, Quil, watch!"

And Quil, even though he was a grown-up, just smiled and applauded at everything she did.

I hadn't been like that when I was little.

Of course, that had only been about a year ago. My other grandfather, Carlisle Cullen, liked to say that I was unique, and so I shouldn't expect to behave like other children did, or think the way they did.

But the more other children I saw, the more that huge difference struck me. I had never pointlessly spun in circles, for instance. I had never played with dolls, or learned to ride a bike. Instead I had read Carlisle's medical books and ridden on the back of a shape-shifter.

Claire finally got dizzy, and toppled over. Of course Quil was there in an instant, to soothe her fake-sounding cries of pain.

"Nessie, would you get a soda out of the cooler, please?" he asked me.

"Orange," Claire demanded, her tears drying in an instant.

"You got it." I obediently opened up the red and white box and fished out a can. After I gave it to Quil, I wiped off my wet, sandy fingers on my jeans. Claire immediately popped the top and started guzzling.

"Claire, tell Nessie ‘thank you,'" Quil coached.

"Thank you," Claire trilled. She then burped loudly.

I shook my head. Claire had not made the connection that I was the same Nessie she used to play with, and that, as my father would say, was a good thing. Most of the adults on the res knew about me, but I had no idea how to explain my life to a six-year-old.

The clouds that always hovered over this part of the Olympic Peninsula parted for a moment, and I let the warm sun touch my face. I knew from experience that it would make my complexion a bit brighter, a bit rosier. But that was nothing I had to fear. The handful of people outside my tiny circle who had seen me in the sunlight had merely remarked on what a healthy-looking, pretty girl I was.

I sometimes spent hours looking in the mirror, trying to track the changes in my face as they happened. I didn't really think I was pretty, no matter what my parents said. Not pretty like my Aunt Rosalie, who was so beautiful sometimes it took my breath away to look at her. Not pretty like my mother, who was the most beautiful woman I knew.

I had brown eyes, and long curly hair, and even white teeth. Aunt Alice kept up with my growth by constantly buying me new clothes, although she was unfortunately way too fond of the color pink. So the clothes were good. But the rest...well, you try growing up in a family like mine and see how you feel.

Claire had already gulped down her drink, and was now up and running around again.

Quil took advantage of the moment to smile down at me. "How's your school work going, Nessie?"

"Fine, I guess. I'm into the high school level work books in math and English, and way above that in science and history. And Aunt Rosalie has started teaching me French."

"Wow." He shook his head. "Must be nice to be so smart."

I chewed at my lip, but of course I couldn't break the skin. "I guess so. Sometimes."

Quil laughed, making the skin around his eyes crinkle. "Bet you have even more homework than Jacob these days," he teased.

I sighed, picturing the piles of books awaiting me on my return home. "Probably. Although Jacob's doing college work across the board, not just in a couple of subjects."

About a year ago, Jacob and my mother had challenged each other to get their educations back on track. Jacob had originally not even finished high school, and my birth had disrupted my mom's plans for college. My dad had been urging my mother to go back to school for years, but it took Jacob showing up, proudly waving his GED in his hand, to get her to move in that direction. Now the two of them were working on their AA degrees, through correspondence courses and the occasional night class in Port Angeles. Sometimes they studied together, and sometimes I got to do my homework with them at the same table. That was kind of cool.

Quil just laughed again, and I had to smile. Quil's laugh always made me smile. He was, hands down, the happiest person I knew.

"Look, Quil! Quil, look at me!" Claire shouted again.

As one Quil and I looked up, only to find that Claire had climbed, on her own, back up to the top of the embankment.

"Claire, come down here, please," Quil called.

But the child just laughed at the game and darted out of sight.

I held up my hand. "Quil, listen!" I urged.

There was no earthly reason either of us should have been able to hear the engines coming down the 110 over the pounding surf, but we did. I knew from the way Quil's eyes widened in horror that he, too, could hear them. There were several of them, from a low bass growl to a higher-pitched whine.

Maybe it was the adrenaline, but his body began to shake uncontrollably. I had never seen any of my Quileute friends change, but knew the warning signs.

"No, Quil, don't shift!" I begged. "Someone will see you! Let me get her!"

I dashed up the slope, faster than a normal human child could run, but still far less likely to attract attention than a loping great wolf.

There were no barriers separating the beach from the two-lane highway, and Claire had gotten halfway across the road. I suspect she had been headed for the trees on the other side, because beyond them was the tiny village. No doubt she had intended to let Quil chase her all the way home.

"Claire, stop!" I ordered, in my most authoritarian voice. It came out even louder than I intended.

Claire froze.

Unfortunately it was in the middle of the road.

And there were a dozen or so motorcycles bearing down on her.

I was fast, and I was strong, but was I fast enough and strong enough to get to her in time?

I had to try. Even if someone saw me.

Time seemed to slow, the way it did when I was hunting and there was nothing in the whole world except me and my prey.

I saw the riders stiffen and begin to pull on their handlebars, saw those without helmets open their mouths in horror. But there was one large motorcycle near the center of the formation that was not going to be able to swerve in time.

I leaned forward onto my toes to run...

...and gasped as another bike accelerated just enough to cut in front of the middle one. The impact knocked both bikes into a skid to the right. One rider fell and rolled only a few feet, but the other one kept sliding, right towards the trees. There was a horrific crunch as metal met wood, and then everything was silent.

I shook my head roughly, and time accelerated again. Suddenly there was motion and sound again, and I felt rather than saw Quil rush past me and scoop up a sobbing Claire. Everywhere around me motorcycles had screeched to a halt.

"Is the kid OK?"

"Somebody check on Buster..."

"Man, it looks bad..."

The cacophony of voices made my head hurt.

Riders were helping the man from the middle bike, a burly fellow with a bushy beard, into a careful sitting position. Thankfully he wasn't bleeding (I would have been able to smell that) but his arm was bent at the wrong angle, and he cradled it against his body with a grimace of pain.

I anxiously looked over towards the trees, where the other rider had disappeared, and my mouth dropped open again.

The rider was back on his feet, limping across the pavement ever so slightly. I could see where the pavement had gouged and scraped deeply into the leather jacket and trousers he wore, but the fact he was on his feet at all astounded me.

As I watched, the rider pried off his helmet, and I realized this was not a he at all, but a she. Long blond hair cascaded almost down to her waist. She looked mildly irritated, but unhurt.

She made a quick motion to the left with her head. It was a tiny, subtle movement most people wouldn't have noticed. But with my special hearing I could hear the unmistakable sound of broken bones settling back into place.

At that moment the wind shifted to blow from the east, bringing with it the scent of pine and motor oil and the unmistakable smell of someone that wasn't human.

I closed my eyes, tuning out all the commotion around me, and listed to the woman's heart. It was beating a sound and rhythm I had only heard once before, when Carlisle has given me his stethoscope to play with and I had amused myself by listening to my own chest.

My eyes popped open again.

The woman wasn't a mirage. She was still standing there, and I could tell she had smelled me as well. She was staring right at me.

"Christ, Johanna! You're OK!" One of the bikers shouted. A dozen heads swiveled in her direction, and several people rushed to her side.

"I'm fine-leathers got the worst of the road rash," she said in a low but feminine voice that made me think of smoke and moonlight. "Bike's trashed, though. How's Buster?"

As she talked she walked right past me, as if I didn't even exist.

I couldn't believe it.

Another of _my_ kind.

Here.

Wow.

_Cool._

\---

The sun had just started to set when I walked up the path to my family's cottage. The little house had been restored as a gift for my parents after their wedding, and I had lived there since I was only a few days old.

My father knew I was coming. Before I could even lay my hand on the doorknob his voice called out to me.

"Hi, Nessie. How was your day with Charlie?"

I let myself in and took off my jacket, carefully hanging it on one of the pegs by the front door. A moment later my father appeared.

"Are you sure Claire is all right?" he asked anxiously, his brows drawn low over his golden eyes.

Sometimes it was a relief to have a father who could read minds. It saved a lot of talking. In the seconds since I'd walked through the door he'd been able to see the near-accident, Charlie's arrival on the scene in his official capacity as police chief of Forks, the ambulance taking the injured biker to the hospital...the only thing he hadn't seen, because I'd been careful not to show it to him, was the strange and beautiful woman.

"She's fine-Quil and Emily are smothering her with affection as we speak," I sighed. "I bet that by tomorrow she doesn't even remember what happened."

My father gave me a hug.

I laid my head against his rock-hard chest. I suppose to other people my father's skin would have seemed cold, but to me it was always just right.

"What if I'd had to rescue her, what if someone had seen me...?"

"We would have dealt with the consequences," he said firmly. "But you didn't, and they didn't."

He stroked my hair. "You're a brave girl. You always have been. You get that from your mother."

I smiled a bit.

He held me out at arm's length. "Now come and say hello to Carlisle. Rosalie and Esme have driven him out of their house."

The grand, modern-style house the rest of the Cullens lived in was walking distance from the cottage, but worlds away from it in style and feeling. That house was all glass and chrome; this one was river rock and timber. I could never make up my mind which one I liked better.

Carlisle held out his arms to me the moment I walked into the living room. In a quick movement he scooped me up onto his lap.

I laughed. "I'm getting too big for this, Carlisle," I told him, pretending to be offended. In truth, Carlisle was one of the only people I didn't mind treating me like I was still a little girl.

Carlisle laughed, too. He was the oldest vampire I knew, but also the kindest and gentlest one. If I ever had occasion to defend my unusual family-I hadn't yet, but you never knew-I was certain Carlisle would be the first person I would point to as being an example of what vampires _could_ be like, if they didn't let their predatory natures get the better of them.

"Dad says Grandmother and Aunt Rosalie have chased you out of your pretty house."

My grandfather pretended to look sad. "I'm afraid so. Alice sent down a revised set of blueprints and some photos for the Vancouver Island house this morning, and Esme and Rosalie have been pouring over them even since. If they want any changes, they'll have to be made this week."

My father sat down in a chair by the fireplace. "Your mom went over to try and keep the ambition in check, but I doubt it will do any good," he told me.

"Probably not," I agreed.

"We've been over this before, Nessie," my father said, correctly reading my thoughts and the frown on my face. "Just because Carlisle and Esme are going to move doesn't mean you won't be seeing them all the time."

"Of course not," Carlisle reassured me. "And think how happy this is making your Aunt Alice-she's never designed a house from scratch before."

"I know, I know." And I did know. But that didn't mean my stomach didn't do flip-flops every time I thought of my beautiful and kind grandparents leaving Forks. It had been bad enough last month when my Aunt Alice and Uncle Jasper had departed for Canada, so that Alice could be on-site to watch her dream become a reality. Alice and Jasper would be coming back to Forks eventually, of course, but it wouldn't be the same without Carlisle and Esme.

As far back as I could remember, and I could remember being a newborn in my father's arms, the tight little circle of vampires had surrounded me, protected me: Carlisle and Esme, Rosalie and Emmett, Alice and Jasper, Mom and Dad. And Jacob, of course, although he was a shifter, not a vampire. I didn't like the idea of any of us being separated.

"We're extremely lucky Dr. Bowers agreed to come down from Seattle and take the job at the hospital," Carlisle mused. "I couldn't be leaving Forks in better hands."

I frowned again. Dr. Matt Bowers was a new doctor at the hospital where my grandfather worked-his second-in-command, really. I had seen him a few times from a distance. He was tall and rangy and athletic-looking, and according to my grandfather he was a very fine doctor.

I squeezed Carlisle's hand in my own, letting him feel my thoughts and concerns. I had never figured out exactly how my "gift" worked. All I knew what that when I made skin-to-skin contact with people they could see what I was thinking and feeling. Dad said I'd started doing that as soon as I'd been born. I'd learned to be a bit more careful who I shared things with-I was careful never to share anything when I touched Charlie, for instance. But in my family circle I used my gift freely.

"Of course I'll miss being a doctor, Nessie," Carlisle said in response to the images I had shown him. "But it's time to move on. I've been pushing my age as it is. I should be around thirty-five by now. I don't think my appearance is going to convince anyone for much longer, do you?"

I looked up at my beautiful grandfather, with his pale hair, flawless white skin, and golden eyes. He looked barely old enough to be out of college.

"Guess not."

It was an occupational hazard for Carlisle, the fact that he would never appear to be any older than he had been the night he had been transformed. No one in my family aged, not even Jacob.

Except for me. Dad promised me it would stop as soon as I reached adulthood. But that didn't really make up for the fact that he already looked more like my brother than my dad. And my mom barely looked old enough to be my baby-sitter, let alone my mother.

"Don't you have homework to finish?" my father reminded me gently.

"Yeah, and some computer stuff to do, too." I gave Carlisle a quick kiss and went to my room. I made sure to solidly close the door behind me.

For my last birthday Alice and Rosalie had redone my room, yet again. I'm not exactly sure who they thought they were designing it for this time-clearly some imaginary version of me, who would have truly been able to appreciate the antique dressing table and the canopy bed. But I knew they meant well, so I hadn't said anything.

I went over to my desk and switched on the glossy purple laptop Jasper and Emmett has given me on the same occasion. This present was definitely more my speed.

While I connected to the Internet I allowed myself to feel guilty, just for a moment, about not telling my father or Carlisle about the woman I'd seen. But, then again, what was there to tell? She hadn't spared so much as a glance for me, and had still been working with some of the other riders to extricate her wrecked motorcycle from the trees when Charlie had insisted we leave for home.

I was the only person for miles who knew what she was.

So what if she'd been a bit rude in not greeting me this afternoon-after all, it wasn't like she could wave and say, "Hey, kid, nice to see another hybrid-so how's it hanging? Kill any bears lately?"

I just had to see her again. Even if only from a distance.

I'd never felt lonely before. I had my parents and grandparents, my aunts and uncles. I had Jacob and the rest of the wolf pack. I had never felt anything was missing.

But now, suddenly, I did. What was missing was another person like me. Someone who had been through what I'd been through, and what I had yet to go through.

I had only seen another half-human, half-vampire once before, when I was very little. His name had been Nahuel, and he lived somewhere in South America. He'd told us that he had sisters, so I knew there were more of us scattered around the world. But, since his visit all those years ago, I had not seen another person like me. And this one had looked so...normal. In the chaos of the moment none of her friends had noticed that she had walked away from a crash that would have killed a normal person. Even with his heightened senses, Quil had been so upset I don't think her presence had even registered on him.

Fate had landed her in my lap, and I wasn't about to let the opportunity slip by.

With a quick series of keystrokes I found the website I was looking for. Dowling's was the only auto repair business in town; this would be the only logical place to take a damaged bike. I quickly committed the shop's hours to memory, just in time to hear a knock on my bedroom door.

"Come in," I said, quickly closing the site before anyone else could see it. After all, Emmett and Rosalie handled all the car repair in our family.

"Hi, sweetheart." My mother's beautiful face appeared around the doorway. "May I come in?"

"Of course. You don't need to ask."

She walked to me and bent down to stroke my hair. "Your father told me what happened down at La Push this morning. That must have been very scary."

"Yeah, well, nothing bad happened, so..."

"I know, baby." A range of emotions played across her pale face. "But still...I'm your mother. These sorts of things scare _me_."

I grinned widely. "I'm indestructible, Mom. You've seen me take down a mountain lion."

"And that scared me, too. Every time something like this happens I can't help but remember other times when I almost lost you."

My mother had not been a vampire nearly as long as the rest of the family, so I guess you could say she still thought like a human most of the time. I knew she was remembering the showdown between our family and the Volturi when I had been a few months old. They had come all the way from Italy, intent on destroying me. Thanks to our allies, and my family's unique powers, it hadn't worked out that way.

"I was a baby then," I scoffed. "I'm old enough to take care of myself now. Don't worry about me. How'd it go with Grandma and Aunt Rosalie?"

She sighed, rolling her lovely golden eyes. "Not good. I think Esme and Carlisle are going to end up with the grandest little house in the woods anyone has ever seen." She smiled again. "What are you working on?"

"Just looking stuff up on the computer. And I've still got some math homework to finish before tomorrow."

She planted a kiss on the top of my head. "I'll let you get back to work then. But come into the living room when you're done; your father wants you to read to him before you go to bed."

"I'll be there," I promised.

My father and I often took turns reading out loud in the evenings. It was his way of making sure I was exposed to great literature.

We'd been working our way through the English authors first. Already I had read the collected works of Shakespeare, Austen, and Eliot, and up right now was Charles Dickens. We were halfway into _Little Dorritt_ , just to the part when Amy turned down the proposal from the gatekeeper's son because she was in love with Arthur. Even though Arthur only thought of her as a little sister.

"I was always more of a fan of the Brontes myself, but I have to admit I'm kind of getting into this one," my mother said with a laugh as the door closed behind her.

Normally I was able to breeze though my homework, but tonight my mind kept wandering. All the people in the books I read were always going off and having adventures, whereas my whole life seemed to be limited to one tiny circle of people in one very small town.

Well, starting tomorrow I was going to fix that. I was going to find that woman again.


	2. Jacob Disapproves

"Done!" I slammed my workbook shut and smiled proudly up at Carlisle. "Can I go play now?"

"'May I go play,'" he corrected gently. "And let me check your work first."

I sat back in my chair with a sigh. It was already past 10AM, when Dowling's opened. My plan to rush through my morning lessons had not been going quite as smoothly as I had hoped.

My grandmother Esme looked over at me from the kitchen, where she was pulling something out of the oven. "Be patient, Nessie," she told me with a smile. "I know it's a pretty day, but your education has to come first."

I sunk down in my chair a bit while my grandfather carefully studied my Biology workbook. Since I wouldn't be able to attend school like other children, my family took it in turns to teach me according to each person's strengths. On Mondays and Wednesdays it was science and math with Carlisle; on Tuesdays and Thursdays my father taught me English and history. The latest addition was French lessons on Fridays. Rosalie usually handled that. Sometimes we used regular home-schooling materials, like the workbook I had just completed, but more often than not my family simply taught from memory.

To pass the time while Carlisle poured over my work I sniffed experimentally at the air.

Esme smiled at me. "Can you tell what spices I used?" She asked as she wrapped a lidded casserole dish in a clean towel to keep it warm.

This was a game we sometimes played. I didn't like human food, and my mother never cooked any more, not even for Charlie--she said she couldn't stand the smell. But the way Esme could turn stuff out of the fridge into something other people would be happy to eat always intrigued me.

"Well, there's chicken, so I'll bet there is some thyme in there."

She beamed at me. "Very good. And?"

I sniffed again. "White pepper. Onion powder. And...paprika."

"That's my girl," she said proudly. "We'll make a chef out of you yet."

"What, no garlic?" I teased.

"Oh, no, that would overwhelm the dish," she joked back. There was a little bit of truth behind the idea of vampires hating garlic-to our sensitive noses it had a particularly unpleasant, coppery smell. Esme only cooked with it when she was making something Italian-and even then she opened all the windows.

Carlisle smiled at the two of us and closed my workbook. "Excellent work, Nessie. A gold star, as always." He stood up and went to help my grandmother start washing dishes.

"I suppose I'm to take the casserole with me to work?" He teased her.

"If you'd be so kind."

"You're spoiling him, Esme."

I looked up from shoving my books into my backpack. "Who?"

Carlisle smiled at me over his shoulder. "Your grandmother is cooking for Dr. Bowers again."

"I just think the poor man should have a home cooked meal once in a while instead of eating at the diner every day," Esme protested as she filled the sink with hot water.

"Charlie used to eat all his meals at the diner, before Bella moved back to town," Carlisle reminded her. "It didn't do him any harm."

"Doesn't he have anyone else to cook for him?" I asked.

"I'm afraid not. His wife died a few years ago."

I pictured Matt Bowers in my mind. I wasn't very good at guessing human ages, but he couldn't have been forty yet. "She must have been young," I said.

My grandfather looked solemn. "She was only thirty. Cancer, I'm afraid. It often takes people in the prime of life."

I wondered how my grandfather could stand being a doctor. Even if I could get past all that blood, I didn't think I could ever get used to being around illness and death and sadness.

"Dr. Bowers came here for a fresh start, just like we did," Esme told me. "I want him to feel welcome."

"Of course, sweetheart. It's very thoughtful of you," Carlisle told her.

Sensing my grandparents were about to get mushy, I cleared my throat. "May I go play now?"

Carlisle laughed. "Yes, you little imp. Leave your backpack here; I'll drop it off at your parents' house later. And be back by four!" He called after me as I sped for the door.

It was actually not raining today, for once, and I reveled in the sound of pine needles crunching under my sneakers as I ran through the forest. Here I didn't have to be careful about my speed, and I ran as fast as my legs would carry me. I still wasn't anywhere near as fast as my father, but I was getting faster.

After sitting still all morning it felt good to stretch my legs, to feel the wind on my face. The forest had always been my playground. I climbed its trees, built little houses out of its sticks and leaves, and hunted its animals. From different directions I could pick up faint whiffs of different creatures that had passed through the area: rabbits, deer, even an elk or two.

There was no time to hunt this morning. And, anyway, I preferred predators.

I ran to the southwest, back towards the little town of Forks. I was careful to slow my pace as soon as I approached the outskirts, so that it looked like I was just jogging along the cracked sidewalks.

It was a Monday morning, sleepy even by Forks standards. Most of the stores along the three block stretch of downtown were open, but it didn't look like they were doing much business.

I skidded to a stop behind the large carved bear that decorated one of the corners, and hid behind it so I could watch the auto shop across the street.

A long row of motorcycles, some new and shining, others battered and dusty, were already lined up outside of it. The riders from yesterday were milling around as well. One of them had his arm in a cast and sling, so I knew he was the man who'd been hurt yesterday. He was seated on the back of his bike. The younger man in front was clearly now doing the driving.

Was I already too late? I wondered.

As I watched the shop's front door banged open, and the woman-Johanna-appeared.

She still took my breath away. Her long blond hair shone in the feeble autumn sunlight, and even dressed in an ordinary t-shirt and jeans she drew the admiring glances of men up and down the street.

"What's the verdict?" One of the bikers asked her. I could hear him as clearly as if I'd been standing right next to them.

"Not good." She frowned. "He's saying a month, and that's if he can get the parts down from Port Angeles."

"That's bull," the man in the sling-Buster, I think his name was-said. "Any mechanic worth his salt could get that bike on its wheels again in a week or two.

Several others nodded their heads in agreement.

"I know that." Johanna shrugged. "But what can I do?"

"Hell, we'll stay and help you fix it ourselves," one of the other men said.

But Johanna shook her head. "No, you guys better get on to Seattle. I'll get the bike fixed and then be on my way to Vancouver."

"Hate to be losing you so soon," Buster said, disappointment obvious in his expression.

"Same here. But I appreciate you letting me ride with you this far. Have a safe trip. No more accidents, OK?"

As I watched she hugged the two women in the group, and Buster, goodbye. A few others she shook hands with. Then she stood back on the sidewalk while the bikes roared to life. With a few final waves at her the riders headed north, back to the 101.

Now I was a little confused. Why was she letting her friends leave her behind?

She stood outside Dowling's for a long moment, and then she crossed the street, back over to my side. For a breathless moment I thought she was coming to speak to me, but instead she breezed right past me and headed toward downtown's only restaurant.

I took a deep breath of her scent as she passed. She even smelled wonderful, like vampire and cinnamon and human all mixed up together.

Almost as if they had a will of their own my feet started moving, and I followed her. I watched as she went into the deserted diner and took a seat in the corner by a window.

I took a deep breath. It was now or never.

Cautiously I pushed open the door. One of those annoying little bells jangled over my head, and I cringed a bit.

It was too late for breakfast, and too early for lunch, but a waitress still grabbed a menu and came to stand in front of me.

"Can I help you, honey?"

"Um...I'm with her." I pointed to the strange woman, and then made my way over to her table.

"May I sit here?" I asked shakily, my hand hovering over the back of a chair.

She didn't even glance up from her menu. "It's a free country."

I pulled out a chair and sat down. The waitress, who clearly didn't have anything better to do, immediately popped a menu into my hands.

"What can I get you to drink?" She asked me.

"Uh..."

"She'll have a Coke," Johanna spoke up quickly. "And I'll have hot tea-herbal, if you have it."

The waitress fished a notepad from her apron. "Anything to eat?"

"No, thank you," I said softly.

"A burger, plain. And fries," Johanna ordered.

My mouth dropped open.

"No cheese on that?" The waitress scribbled away.

"No, thanks. Allergies, you know."

"Got it. I'll be back with your drinks in just a moment."

As soon as the waitress had disappeared into the kitchen I leaned forward. "I, uh, I don't eat human food. Only...um...animals."

She looked at me sharply, and for the first time I could see the color of her eyes under her heavy bangs. They were dark blue, the color of the Pacific just before a storm.

"Suit yourself, Renfield. But the burger happens to be for me."

"Renfield?" I asked.

"Yeah, Renfield-you know who he is, right?"

I sat back in my chair, offended. "Of course I do. Bram Stoker, Dracula. The crazy guy who eats bugs. It's a weird reference, is all."

She just shrugged.

We sat there in silence for a long moment. The waitress returned and put down a tall glass of soda in front of me and a small teapot and cup in front of the woman. I watched as Johanna chose a teabag from the little container she'd been given and immersed it in hot water.

"So how come you eat human food?" I asked. As I spoke I cringed to think what Carlisle would say about my grammar.

But she didn't seem to notice. "I spend most of my time with humans, kid. It would look a bit weird if they never saw me eat or drink anything."

We were still keeping our voices very low, even in the empty dining room.

"You could pretend. That's what most people I know do."

"Only because they don't have a choice," she countered. As if to prove her point she took a deep sip from her teacup.

"You don't hunt? Not even animals?" I marveled.

"Haven't in a long time."

"Wow." I really meant it. The urge to hunt was the strongest instinct I had. It wasn't just being hungry; it was a part of who I was. It was a part of my family's identity.

"When I was first born my grandfather tried to get me to drink baby formula," I told her. "I can still remember how chalky and lumpy it tasted."

"Fascinating," she said. But I could tell from her tone she meant exactly the opposite.

"You don't need to be rude."

"Don't I?" She looked at me with those very blue eyes again. "You kept staring at me yesterday, and you've been following me around all morning. Don't say you haven't-I could smell you."

"Only because I wanted to meet you," I said defensively. "And I didn't know how."

"You could have blown my cover."

"But I didn't. And I haven't told anyone else about you, honest. Not even my parents."

For the first time she seemed mildly interested. "Your parents?"

"My mom and dad."

"Your mother's alive? That's odd."

I impatiently closed my mouth while Johanna's lunch was delivered to the table.

"Ketchup's on the table if you want it, sugar," the waitress told her.

"Thanks, but this is fine."

The waitress shrugged and walked away again.

"How is that odd?" I blurted as soon as she was far enough away not to overhear us.

"I've never met one of us who still had a mother," she said speculatively as she tore off a small corner of her burger and popped it in her mouth.

"Because they die?"

She swallowed with some effort. I could tell she wasn't exactly enjoying her food.

"Yes."

I knew the story of how my mother had passed from mortal to immortal quite well. She had explained it to me when I had first asked about it. It was important, she had said, that I understood that my unusual birth had not had any bearing on her decision. She had already been in love with my father, and intent on staying with him forever. My arrival, she insisted, had only changed the timeline a bit.

But that seemed an awfully personal story to tell someone I had just met. I changed the subject.

"Why did you let your friends leave without you?"

"They're not my friends, not really. I only met them about a month ago, outside of Albuquerque. We were just riding together as far as Seattle. Sometimes I like to have company when I travel. But I'm heading for Vancouver, so this place seemed as good a place to part as any." She scowled as she tore off another piece of sandwich. "At least it did before it turned out that the only mechanic in town is a liar and a crook."

I drew patterns in the condensation on my Coke glass. "Everyone knows that. Most people take their cars up to Port Angeles if they're still running."

"Well, my bike isn't running," she said tartly. "And I can't be stuck in this podunk town that long."

I didn't bother responding to her jab at Forks, because I had suddenly been struck with inspiration. An idea so brilliant I was surprised I hadn't thought of it earlier.

I smiled smugly.

She paused with a French fry halfway up to her lips. "What?"

"It just so happens I know a great mechanic," I grinned.  
\---  
Jacob wasn't happy with me.

He pulled me over to one side as Johanna off-loaded her damaged motorcycle from the trailer she'd rented.

His long black braids hung down on either side of his face while he bent down to me.

"Geez, Nessie, you're almost as big a magnet for trouble as your mom. Speaking of which, do your parents know about her?" He whispered.

"I can hear you, you know," Johanna said shortly. She set the bike gingerly in the middle of Jacob's shed, a job that it should have taken two strong men to do. "So there's no point in whispering."

"I'll tell them," I promised him. "I just haven't gotten around to it. You know how they sometimes overreact to things."

I was trying to sound conspiratorial, but Jacob wasn't having it. He was clearly in big brother mode today.

Sometimes it seemed as if Jacob and I were operating on the same, secret frequency, the way we could each understand what the other was thinking, and the way we laughed at the same jokes, and liked all the same things. But then there were other times that we didn't understand each other at all, and he was every bit as annoying as a real brother would be. Today was one of those days.

It had finally begun to drizzle a bit. I could hear the drops hitting the outside of the two metal sheds bolted together that served as Jacob's workshop. Jacob had a lot on his plate, leading his part of the pack and going to school. He usually only worked on his own cars. But I knew he took on additional jobs from time to time, to earn a little extra money and to stay busy. I was counting on that fact.

"She needs our help, Jacob," I said softly. "Please."

OK, I'll admit that I was kind of being unfair. I knew I had Jacob wrapped around my little finger, and, honest, I tried not to take advantage of him. But this really was important.

He sighed heavily, and then glanced back at the woman who was already bent over her bike.

"You're not staying?" He demanded.

"No." She answered without even glancing up. "As soon as we get this baby running again I am out of here, shifter."

"Good, bloodsucker," Jacob retorted.

"That's half bloodsucker to you," she snapped back.

Jacob shook his head helplessly and went to stand on her other side.

"It is a nice bike," he finally admitted grudgingly. "A Harley Hydraglide, isn't it?"

"1952," Johanna said proudly. "I usually handle basic repairs, but I'm afraid this is beyond me."

"What did you do to it?"

"Wrapped it around a tree."

Jacob stared at her for a long moment. "Yeah, Quil told me about what happened yesterday. That was an insane thing you did."

Quil had obviously realized that the accident had been caused by one bike swerving in front of the other.

Johanna just shrugged. "Buster has grandkids. He wouldn't have been able to live with himself if he'd hit that little girl."

I knew that this would soften Jacob up a bit. In saving Claire's life Johanna had inadvertently done a service to the wolf pack. That would mean something to him.

As I watched he knelt down next to the motorcycle and poked and prodded for awhile. "Frame's not bent," he finally announced.

"And that's a good thing?" I asked hopefully.

"Yeah. Fixing it will go a lot faster. It's just the engine that took the brunt of the impact and that can be rebuilt. I can probably find a couple of old panheads in the local scrap yards, get it up and running in a few days. I'm not a professional mechanic," he told Johanna as he wiped his hands on a rag. "But if all you want is to get back on the road I can probably handle it."

"That's all I want," Johanna concurred. "Just tell me what you need and I'll get the money to you."

"I'll work up a parts list by tonight," he promised.

She nodded. "Good. I'm staying at that motel right off of Main Street, the Lodge. You can get it to me there."

"You won't stay for awhile after it's fixed?" I asked hopefully.

"Sorry, kid, can't. Places to go, people to see."

Jacob sent me a warning glance, and I immediately bit back my protest. I knew I shouldn't push my luck. Even Jacob had his limits.


	3. Backstory

I hummed to myself as Johanna's rented truck and trailer made its way back up the highway to Forks, minus her motorcycle. A light rain was falling, the air tasted fresh, and I was having an adventure. All was right with the world.

"Happy little thing, aren't you?" She glanced over at me.

"Not all the time. But right now, yes I am." 

Jacob had wanted to be the one to give me a ride home. He'd grudgingly given Johanna permission to take me, since she had to go back to Forks anyway. 

I had a feeling he'd be calling my parents-or, worse, showing up on our doorstep-- tonight. But it wasn't even 4PM yet, plenty of time for me to get home and explain to my parents what I had been up to. They would be a little mad, probably, but I would deal.

"You're, what now, about four?" Johanna asked me.

I opened my mouth in surprise. "How did you know that?"

"We all grow at about the same speed. I've gotten pretty good at guessing our ages. Of course, once we hit adulthood all bets are off."

This was exactly the kind of thing I wanted to hear about. I turned excitedly in my seat.

"How many of us have you met, Johanna? How many people like you and me?"

She was quiet for a long moment. 

"Twelve," she finally said. "I have been just about everywhere there is to go, and I've met twelve, not counting you. There might be a few more here and there, but if so they're well hidden."

My face must have fallen, because she chuckled a bit. "What, you were expecting more?"

"I don't know. Maybe." I worried my lip with my teeth again. "That doesn't seem like very many of us, scattered across the whole world."

She was silent again for awhile. I got the feeling she was trying to decide how much to tell me.

"You can understand why, can't you?" She asked.

I thought about what Nahuel had told us, and what I knew about my own birth. 

"I know it's kind of rare for us to get, uh, conceived in the first place." I didn't let my thoughts linger on this, because then I might think about how _I_ had been conceived and my mind _so_ did not want to go there.

"True."

"And I know we have a hard time getting born. It almost killed my mom."

She frowned again. "Yes, well, as I said your mother apparently is an exception to the rule. It _does_ kill the mother."

"And then of course there's all kind of danger, from humans, or other vampires, or from anyone who doesn't understand what we are." I propped my feet up against the dashboard. "So a lot of those who get born probably don't live very long."

"Correct."

I had survived because I'd had a whole army of people taking care of me, even before I was born. And even with Carlisle's best medical care my father had still had to turn my mother after my birth to save her life.

They had fed me and caressed me and coddled me and spoiled me, and with the exception of the incident with the Volturi I had grown up healthy and safe.

I figured it was my turn to get a few of my questions answered. 

"So, if your mom died, who took care of you, when you were born? Your dad?"

Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel. "No, not him. I was raised by my brother, Joshua. Not my biological brother you understand, but someone my father had turned almost a century before my birth. Joshua felt obligated to care for me because of that connection."

"So you _were_ raised by vampires, like me."

"Yes."

"How old are you? Did you really stop aging as soon as you reached adulthood? My dad says I will, but I don't know if..."

She held up one hand. "Slow down, kid."

I took a deep breath. "Sorry. There's just so much I want to ask you, and I feel like you're going to disappear any second."

"I'm not disappearing without my bike, so you can relax for the moment. And to answer your question, I'll be fifty-four next month. And, yes, I did stop aging as soon as I reached physical maturity. That happens when we're six, maybe seven. There's a bit of leeway there, but not much."

I took a long admiring look at her. "You look, maybe, twenty."

"I prefer to look twenty-five. That's what my driver's license says."

"Nahuel was centuries old," I mused. 

Her eyes widened in surprise. "Oh, you've met him, huh? He's a nice guy. Very formal."

"I was really little when he visited, but, yeah, that was my impression of him, too."

"Well, he was born in a different time. I like his sisters, too. They are much closer to my age, so we have a lot more in common. It's funny--with full-blooded vampires generational differences tends to get smoothed out as time moves on. A vampire that's a hundred years old and one that's five hundred years old still tend to think the same way," she mused aloud. "But being part human seems to make differences between hybrids more noticeable the longer we live. I don't know. Maybe we're just not as adaptable as _they_ are."

I frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I'm not sure how best to explain." She sighed. "Let me give you an example. There's one other hybrid in the continental United States-the only other one, I thought, until I saw you staring at me yesterday. Anyway, his name is Caleb, and he lives deep in the Great Smoky Mountains. The father, whoever he was, abandoned him shortly after his birth, and Caleb's spent his whole existence hiding from both humans and vampires. It was quite a lot of work to track him down, let me tell you. And even then it was hard to gain his trust.

Caleb was born, as near as he can remember, in the early nineteenth century. Before the Civil War, certainly, and perhaps even earlier than that. He's lived alone for so long time really doesn't have any meaning for him. But he still has lots of beliefs and mannerisms right out of that era that he just can't shake."

"Like what?"

"Oh, like he hates technology. Never uses any of it, or had any of it installed in his cabin. Not telephones, not even a radio. He calls them, and I quote, "new-fangled contraptions."

I laughed.

"And don't get me started on his views about women. According to him, we shouldn't wear pants, we shouldn't travel by ourselves--we shouldn't even vote. He says it's unladylike." 

"But maybe that's because he been isolated his whole life, like you said," I suggested.

"I told him that, but he has no intention of leaving his beloved little hollow." She pronounced it ‘holler.' "Not even to travel with me. I finally just gave up."

"So he's still there?"

"Probably, poor baby. But he's happy with his mountains and his guns and his raccoons and possums to hunt. What are you gonna do?" She shrugged her shoulders as we turned into the driveway of her motel. 

As far as I was concerned the trip back from La Push had been too short.

She pulled into the parking lot behind the building and put the truck in neutral. 

"Last stop, kid. Unless you want me to run you up to your house?"

"No, that's probably not a good idea." I sighed, anticipating the discussion that was going to have to take place as soon as I got home. "I'd better walk."

"Suit yourself. I have to take the truck back to the rental place anyway."

I leaned over to open the door, and paused.

"Hey, Johanna? Can I show you something? Without freaking you out or anything?"

She looked a bit puzzled, but she nodded. "Sure."

She looked even more confused when I reached over and laid a hand on her wrist. She tensed a bit but didn't pull away when I started showing her things. I started with the moment yesterday when I had realized what she was. I let her feel how happy that had made me. I ran though this afternoon, showing her from my perspective just how cool it had been to hang out. I knew she could see herself speaking to Jake, speaking to me, telling me stories as the truck zipped down the highway. Just as we reached the part when we turned into the motel driveway I let go.

"Wow, that was, um...odd." She told me. "But thanks."

"No problem." I grinned at her. 

\---

As soon as I got home I immediately sought out my greatest ally in the family, the one person who I knew would stand by me even if my parents blew their stacks about Johanna being in town.

I found Aunt Rosalie where I expected to, in the immaculately clean Cullen garage. I hadn't gotten more than a few feet inside when a pair of enormous arms swept me up into the air.

"Long time, no see, squirt!" My Uncle Emmett held me, dangling, several feet off the floor.

"You saw me this morning, Emmett."

"Really?" He pretended to be deliberating this. "I could have sworn it's been a lot longer."

"Nope."

"Huh. Go figure." He gave me a playful toss.

"Emmett, stop throwing her around; you don't want her hitting her head on the ceiling again," my Aunt Rosalie admonished. "Remember how mad that made Bella."

She was meticulously wiping down her tools before they went into the correct boxes. Her designer jeans and blouse were still just as spotless as they'd been that morning.

"Rosalie, how is it you can work on cars and not get drop of oil or a spot of grease anywhere on you?" I marveled.

Emmett laughed his big bear laugh. "That's what I keep asking!"

"And I'll tell you both what I always say. I'm just very careful," she said smugly. 

Emmett finally set me down, and I looked at my aunt.

"Do you have a second? I need to talk about something."

"Sure, sweetheart. Go ahead."

I glanced over my shoulder. "Um, Emmett, would you mind...?"

"Girl stuff, huh? Aren't you a little young for that?"

I rolled my eyes. "Uncle Emmett..."

He held up his hands. "OK, OK, I know when I'm not wanted. I'll see you ladies later." He shoved his hands in his pockets and, whistling, walked back towards the house. Nothing ever fazed my Uncle Emmett.

"So what's up?" Rosalie perched on the hood of the nearest car.

"Well, it's kind of a long story. Would it be OK if I showed it to you instead?"

"Sure, baby." She held out her hands expectantly, her flawless pink manicure gleaming in the overhead lights.

She was silent while she watched what I had seen and felt what I had felt. I appreciated that. I tried to glean from her expression what she was thinking, but her face was perfectly still, her eyes closed.

I let the last image run out, and looked at her carefully. "Well?"

She opened her eyes. 

"I think you know the first thing I'm going to say, Renesmee."

I scowled. "That I should have told Mom and Dad?"

"Yes. What if this woman had been dangerous?"

"But she isn't."

"But you didn't know that this morning, did you? And you went to find her anyway."

I looked down at my shoes. "I guess."

She placed one of her pale hands under my chin and tipped my face back up. "Angel, I absolutely understand _why_ you did what you did, even if I don't approve of _how_ you did it. Your mother and father, will, too."

"Dad will know the minute he sees me," I grumbled.

"He will," Rosalie agreed. "But that's just Edward."

"Will you come with me?" I asked hopefully.

"Of course. You don't even need to ask." She put her arm around me and we walked together towards the cottage.

"So how's the dog doing?"

"Please don't call Jacob that, Aunt Rosalie. And he's fine."

Rosalie and Jacob had never liked each other. But over the years their dislike had mellowed into a predictable round of mild insults and name-calling. 

It still bothered me that they behaved that way. But since neither had shown any signs of easing up on the other I didn't see much hope for stopping such childish behavior.

"Uh oh." Looking up the path I could see my father standing by the front door, waiting for me. "I think he already knows something's up."

Rosalie gave my shoulders a gentle squeeze.

I could tell by my father's exceptionally serious expression he had already seen in my mind what I was going to tell him. 

I paused a few feet away. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you yesterday, Dad. Please don't be mad."

"Renesmee..." He sighed.

Not "Nessie." That was not a good sign.

"She's very sorry, Edward," Rosalie offered. "She wants a chance to explain her actions."

My father looked steadily at his adopted sister. "I appreciate that, Rosalie, and I appreciate you walking up with her. But I think this is something her mother and I need to discuss with her in private."

"Of course," she said smoothly. She kissed the top of my head. As she turned to head back down the path she glanced back over her shoulder. 

"But don't be too hard on her, Edward. You can't blame her for wanting to know more about what she is."

\---

Later that night I lay in bed listening to my parents' voices in the living room. 

They knew I could hear them, of course. But I had still been banished to my room after my confession. "It's the principle of the thing," my mother had insisted.

"It's not like we can ground her," my father was saying now. "And Rosalie is right-we can't really blame her for wanting to go and see this woman."

"I don't like this, Edward. Another hybrid, turning up in Forks just out of the blue? How do we know this isn't some kind of plot to get at Nessie?"

"From everything she's told me about yesterday I believe the accident truly was an accident. And this Johanna person was apparently quite happy to ignore Nessie's existence until our daughter forced the matter."

"Nessie's never lied to us before, Edward. I mean, I guess it wasn't really a lie, but it was deliberately omitting something extraordinarily important." 

The hurt tone in my mother's voice made me suck in my breath.

"Maybe she really is entering adolescence then," my father offered.

"That's not funny."

"I didn't mean it to be. But deciding to keep some of her thoughts private, even from me-isn't that a sign she's making her own decisions, Bella?"

"Even if they're dangerous decisions, Edward? Even if she could get hurt?"

"She's growing so much faster than an ordinary child. But so far her mind and her judgment have kept pace. I don't see that we have any option except to trust her to make good choices on her own."

There was silence for a long moment, and then my father chuckled.

"Jacob's outside. He's not sure if it's safe to come in."

" _I'm_ not sure if it's safe for him to come in," my mother retorted. "He should have called us the minute that woman set foot in his yard." 

I could hear the front door open and close and Jacob's soft footsteps across the floor. I propped myself up on one elbow so I could listen more closely.

"I went to talk to Johanna," Jacob said.

"You did?" My mother asked.

"Of course I did, Bella." Jake sounded exasperated. "You know how much Nessie means to me. How do you think I felt when she pulled up with some strange woman in tow? A woman with a heartbeat I'd only ever heard once before?"

"Nessie says you agreed to fix her bike," my father said questioningly.

"Yeah, because the sooner Johanna's gone the better I think it will be for Nessie. You should have seen the way Nessie looked at her-like Johanna had hung the moon. I don't want her getting attached to someone who only wants to get out of this town as quickly as possible."

I heard my mother move across the room. "That's what she told you?"

"Yep. I met her over at Wade's Tavern to give her the parts estimate for her bike. We drank a few beers, shot some pool."

"She drinks beer?"

"Yes, although she didn't really seem to enjoy it. She says she can't really taste anything properly. But I gather she only lives on human food these days."

"Nessie's never even been willing to try human food." My father paused. "So do you believe this woman, Jacob?"

My friend was quiet for a long moment, so long that I strained to hear him.

"I do believe her when she says she only wants to get her bike fixed and leave Forks."

"And Nessie?" My mother asked.

"Johanna's a little annoyed to have run into another hybrid here, actually. She says the young ones are always a bit of a pain. But she understands why Nessie has been following her around, asking questions." Jacob raised his voice. "Hear that, Nessie?"

"Yes, Jacob," I called back. "Thanks!"

"Renesmee!" My father said in a warning tone. "Go to bed!"

"Yes, Dad!" I called back. I flopped back down on my pillow, still listening.

"From what she told me it sounds like she just travels from place to place. Been all over the world-South America, Africa, Asia. She says she knew there were vampires in this area, but not that there were shifters."

"How did she know that?" 

"She wouldn't say. Guess we just hide ourselves better than you do, Cullen." I could tell by the sound of his voice that Jacob was grinning.

"So," my mother spoke up again. "You really think it's OK to let Nessie be around this woman?"

"Well, it's like this, Bella. I do think she's hiding something. But," he said quickly, before my mother could interrupt him, "I don't think it has anything to do with Nessie or with any of us. Whatever it is, it's her business. So I'm just going to fix her bike and get her on her way. No harm, no foul."

Both of my parents were silent for a long time.

"I trust Jacob's judgment," my mother finally said. "He wouldn't let Nessie get hurt any more than we would. So if she wants to see this woman-Johanna-again, I won't forbid it. But only if Jake or one of us is there, too. Then we'll see."

"I think that's a fair compromise, sweetheart," my father said. 

I smiled into my pillow, and then I fell asleep.


	4. Fathers and Daughters

My parents were as good as their word. The next afternoon Jacob picked me up in his truck to take me with him down to La Push.

He was behind the wheel of his latest acquisition, a beat-up old Ford pickup. He used it mainly for hauling, so I knew he'd spent the morning scavenging parts from area scrap yards.

I have to admit that beside my father's latest car, a sleek silver Audi, the dumpy blue truck did look particularly sad. But I was happy as always to see Jacob, even if I was in a rotten mood.

"Have a good morning, kiddo?" He asked as I jumped into the passenger seat.

"No," I groused. 

My father came down the driveway and leaned in through the window on my side.

"She got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, I'm afraid, Jacob," he announced.

"So I see."

My father turned serious eyes back to me. "You can stay in La Push until I come and get you at 4:30."

"That's too early, Dad! 5:30? C'mon, please?"

"4:30," he said firmly. "And you're not to be out of Jacob's sight, understand?"

I scrunched down in the seat. "Yes, sir."

"Good girl. I'll see you later."

"OK," I grumbled.

The truck pulled out of the driveway, and Jacob and I sat in silence for a moment.

"Want to talk about it?" My friend finally asked.

"I just has a bad morning, is all. It started with me finding out I've outgrown another pair of sneakers. My red ones-my favorites! I've only had them two months!"

"Well, that's going to happen, Nessie," Jacob laughed. "No one grows faster than you do. But I went through something like that myself once. You've got spares, right?"

"Yeah. Aunt Alice buys everything in multiples. But just once I'd like to wear out something before we have to give it to charity."

Jacob just laughed again.

"And then I had lessons, and I've got heaps and heaps of History homework to do. Dad really went nuts this week. I've got two essays to write, and like a billion pages of reading..."

"You're the fastest reader I know, Nessie."

The complement did little to mollify me. "Yeah, but still. I wish I could live on the res with you. You get to do whatever you want, whenever you want."

"I do, huh?"

"Yeah."

Jacob glanced over at me. "Like take care of Billy?"

Billy Black was Jacob's dad, and my grandfather Charlie's closest friend. He wasn't in the best health, and needed a wheelchair to get around.

"Well, OK, you take care of Billy."

"And go to school."

I was getting irritated. "And go to school."

"And fix cars for money..."

I threw up my hands. "I get it, I get it. You can stop now."

"I'm just saying we all have responsibilities, Nessie. Your mom and dad want you to have the best education you can get. That way, when the time comes, you can go to college anywhere you want."

"I don't want to go to college," I said with finality. "I want to stay here forever."

"You can't know that now, Nessie," Jacob said seriously. "You're too young to make those kinds of decisions."

"But what would you do if I went away to school?" I demanded. "Who would run with you through the woods? Who would ride on your back?"

Jacob stared straight ahead at the road. "I'd miss you, of course, something terrible. But there's a whole world out there you haven't seen yet."

I sat back, a seat spring poking me as I moved.

"I hate it when you talk like a grown-up."

"Hey, if the shoe fits..." Jacob laughed again, and suddenly he was back to himself.

When we pulled up to Jacob's garage Johanna was already there, leaning against a non-descript rental car. She had on a shirt the exact color of her eyes, and a cup of coffee was in her hand.

"Any luck?" She demanded of Jacob before he was even out of the car. 

"Think I got everything," Jacob nodded. "Help me unload and we'll get started.

"Hey, Johanna," I said excitedly. 

"Hey, kid." She spared me only a glance as Jacob handed her a soggy cardboard box filled with mysterious pieces of metal.

Inside I sat on Jacob's rolling red tool box and watched as they sorted parts. Johanna's motorcycle had already been stripped of most of its damaged engine. The now-empty spaces gave it an odd, anorexic look.

After awhile the two adults settled into a steady work rhythm. A lot of what they discussed was about motorcycles, so I didn't really understand. 

In the meantime I was wracking my brain to try and come up with a way to ask Johanna more about the supernatural world. She'd already told me more about it a few conversations than I'd ever hoped to learn from my parents.

Jacob seemed to sense my anxiety.

"So you say you've been all over the world," Jacob asked casually when they had run out of engine talk. 

Johanna was bent over something in her lap, trying to extract a very small screw from one of the replacement parts. But she nodded.

"Seen many shifters?" He gave me a tiny wink.

She shrugged. "A few. Here and there. They keep pretty well hidden. Like you."

"Seen any werewolves?" I piped up.

This got both Johanna's and Jacob's attention.

"No offense, Jacob," I added quickly. "You're perfect just the way you are. But I mean real werewolves, not shifters."

"You're talking Ozzy Osborne, ‘Howl at the Moon' kind of werewolves?" She asked.

"I don't know who that is, but, yeah." I kicked my feet against the metal sides of my improvised chair. "Grandpa says the Volturi has made them all but extinct."

"Yeah, that's the story I've heard, too. A-hah!" Johanna cried out in triumph, holding aloft the elusive screw. "Got it!"

Jacob took the part from her hands and started adding it to the larger lump of metal in the center of the floor. This I took to be the new engine.

"Well?" I demanded, when she did not immediately speak again.

"Well, what?" She asked. But I could see a grin playing around the corners of her mouth.

"Werewolves!"

"Oh, yeah. To answer your question, yes, I have met some werewolves. You're right-there aren't many of them left, particularly in the places the Volturi looked first-the Carpathians, the Urals. As far as I could tell there wasn't a single one left in southern or eastern Europe.

"Bastards," Jacob said, to no one in particular.

"Jacob doesn't like the Volturi," I explained.

"Who does? Anyway, those that survived have holed up in the most isolated places they can find, usually in the middle of nowhere. I ran into a small group of them in the northern Rockies, for example."

Jacob looked troubled. "So close?"

"If you consider several hundred miles from here close, then yes. But as far I could tell they hadn't left the mountains in generations. They were inbred as hell. I'd be surprised if they didn't all have twelve toes, although I didn't stick around to find out."

"Ahem." Jacob cleared his throat loudly. "Kid in the room, remember?"

"Hey, you guys asked _me_."

"What are they like?" I was trying to picture what a werewolf-a real one-might look like. All I could come up with were those you saw in late night movies, actors with fake fur glued to their faces. 

"And how did you know they weren't really shifters?" Jacob asked.

  
"Werewolves smell nothing like shifters, for one thing." Johanna looked thoughtful. "And, for another, even in their human form, they look absolutely miserable."

"Probably because they can't control their shifts. That must be terrible." Jacob shook his head. He took great pride in his ancestral ability to transform at will.

Johanna laughed bitterly. "Yeah, well, don't feel too sorry for them. When there's a full moon out and they do transform, they're 100% wolf. No reason, no mercy. Rip your throat out as soon as look at you. Those I met were careful to warn me to be as far away as possible before that happened."

I shivered with delight at the horror. "What else?"

Johanna shrugged. "You don't see very many young people in werewolf communities, and no old ones. There aren't many young because they seem to have trouble reproducing, uh, the old fashioned way. Not that it really matters because as you know being bitten is the only way to _become_ a werewolf. Even if you're bitten as a child the transformation doesn't begin until puberty. Oh, and there are no old werewolves, because a sick or old wolf becomes easy prey for the others."

"OK, I think that's enough about that for one day," Jacob said firmly. "Nessie's going to have nightmares."

"No, I won't!" I protested loudly. "Stop treating me like a baby!"

"He's right, kid. There's no need for you to know all the terrible things that are out there now. " A dark cloud seemed to have passed over Johanna's pretty face. "You'll run into them yourself, soon enough."

\---

"Do you have any powers, Johanna?" I asked a bit later, as the two of us were taking a break and enjoying the fresh air outside of the garage. 

Jacob was working on a particularly stubborn fitting. His frustration had been mounting to the point that Johanna and I had decided we should momentarily excuse ourselves.

It was overcast, but the rain was holding off for now. I could smell the pines, rich and tangy, and the black earth of the forest. I knew Johanna could, too.

"Powers?" She frowned. "What, like, x-ray vision?" 

"Don't tease. Powers, like what I showed you the other day."

She sighed heavily. "Does it matter?"

"No-I'd like you either way. But I was wondering if it's just me."

She stared out into the trees for a long time. Inside Jacob dropped a tool and swore softly.

"It's not just you," she said after a long moment.

I grinned. "Cool. What can you do?"

Johanna rolled her eyes. "It's not very impressive. Although I won't lie--it has come in handy a few times."

"What? Tell me, please."

She looked at me slyly.

"You said you lived with your parents. Both your parents."

"Yeah? So?"

"And you talk about your grandparents a lot."

I was getting frustrated. "So?"

"That wasn't the complete truth. There are..." she closed her eyes. Her fingers moved slightly, as if searching for something.

"There are eight vampires in and around Forks," she announced as she opened her eyes again. "Nine, if you count yourself. Ten, with me."

My jaw dropped open.

"Yeah, that's right-I've got two aunts and two uncles, too. But how did you know that?" I demanded. "Did you ask Jacob?"

"Of course not. You asked to see my power, kid-that's it."

"You can find vampires."

"Anywhere, anytime. Works even from a couple of miles away."

I thought this over for a moment. "Like radar? Vampire radar? V-dar?"

She laughed a bit. "I suppose."

"But how does it work?"

"How does _your_ power work?"

"I don't know. I've just always been able to do it."

She folded her arms across her chest. "Ditto."

"Hmm. Can you see faces, or..."

"No, no, it's not nearly that accurate. It's like..." She seemed to be searching for the right words. "When I close my eyes I can see the land spread out around me. It's pitch black, right? And the vampires stand out like little golden dots in the darkness. That's how I know they're there."

"What about people like us?"

"I can see them, too. But we're different. More...silvery, I guess. That's how I've been able to locate others like us, no matter how well they are hidden."

I digested this information. "That's cool. I think that's a cooler power than mine. I have to touch somebody for mine to work."

She shook her head. "I don't think we get to swap, if that's what you're thinking."

We stood quietly for a long moment.

"My mom and dad were kind of worried about you," I finally confessed.

"I figured they would be."

"You did?"

"Yeah, of course. Vampires are all kind of territorial. Why do you think I cut down through La Push instead of a straight shot through Forks?"

"You were avoiding us? You already knew we were here?"

"Yes, and yes. And a lot of good it did me, too. Wrecked my bike, stuck in the middle of nowhere..."

"Come on, it hasn't been that bad, has it? You met me. And you'll like my family, too-you should totally come over and see us. I know my parents would like to meet you, and my grandfather..."

Her face had grown so still while I was speaking that I trailed off in mid-sentence.

"You don't want to meet my family?" I was outraged on their behalf. "Why not?"

She looked at me seriously. "It's nothing personal, Nessie. It's just that...I'm not very good with parents. I never had any. And I'm not good with authority figures. Or, well, other people in general, really..."

"You're doing just fine with me."

  
"You're a kid," she scoffed.

I was trying to think of a suitable response when the steady growl of a car engine drew our attention. It was too low and grumbly to be my father's Audi. I watched with interest as a low, black car I'd never seen before pulled into the clearing next to Jacob's house.

It looked old, with its wide stance and heavy build. But its black paint was glossy and its chrome shone.

"Pretty car," I observed idly.

" _That_ ," Johanna corrected icily, "is a 1960s Chevrolet Impala. An American classic."

"Oh. Sorry."

"You should be."

I honestly wasn't sure if she was joking or not.

"Jacob, someone's here to see you!" I called. "May we come back in?"

"Sure, Nessie. All done."

Johanna and I stepped back inside in time to see the newcomer appear at the other end of the garage. It took me a moment to recognize him without the white coat, but after a second or two I was able to place the brown hair and wide smile.

"Hey, doc. Be with you in a second," Jacob told him, wiping his hands on a rag.

The young doctor's eyes settled on me. "Hello, there."

"Hi. I'm Nessie."

"Hi, Nessie. I'm Matt. Matt Bowers."

I smiled. "I know. You work over at the hospital, right?"

"That's right." 

His skin was very tan from being outdoors a lot, and friendly crinkles appeared at the corners of his brown eyes when he smiled. I couldn't have thought of anyone less like Carlisle if I had tried. But if my grandparents liked and trusted this man, that was good enough for me. It was just too bad I couldn't introduce myself as a Cullen, at least not without having to do some fast explanations. 

When I'd been born the story my mother and father had told my other grandfather, Charlie, was that I was adopted, and that I was "special." Charlie, who operated on a strictly need-to-know basis on all things related to my family, had apparently accepted that story. How much of it he really believed, when I had his curly hair and my mother's eyes, I honestly didn't know.

Fortunately I didn't have to give Dr. Bowers my last name. Because he had by now caught sight of Johanna, and judging from his expression he'd forgotten that I, or Jacob, was in the room.

I'd forgotten all about the effect she'd had on men that first day in town. Jacob, after all, hadn't paid her anything more than polite attention.

But Matthew Bowers was staring at her as if he was a blind man who'd just seen the sun. He was looking at her the way my father looked at my mother.

Johanna shifted uncomfortably under his gaze.

"This is my friend, Johanna," I added quickly. "Johanna, ah..."

"Bergman," she added.

"Yep. Johanna Bergman." I smiled at the doctor. "Jacob's fixing her bike."

He blinked hard, as if he was trying to clear his vision. Maybe he was. 

"Oh, yeah?" He politely looked down at the work-in-progress on the garage floor. "Wow. A Harley Hydraglide, right?"

Johanna looked a trifle less frosty. "Yes."

"Panhead?"

She nodded and looked away again. "That your Impala outside?"

"Yes." He perked up when she asked about his car. My dad and uncles were the same way. What was it about men and cars? 

"Had it since college," he continued proudly.

"1966?"

"It's a '67. You know your cars, Ms. Bergman."

He continued to stare. I became a bit concerned that at this rate his eyeballs were going to fall out of his head. 

Jacob cleared his throat. "I did have some luck finding the parts for your exhaust system, doc. I'm not sure they're exactly what you had in mind, but they can probably be machined to fit. Come and have a look."

With great effort Jacob managed to draw the doctor over to look though some boxes on his workbench. 

The doctor expressed mild interest, but all the while he kept trying to look over his shoulder at Johanna. He was trying to catch her eye, without looking like he was _trying_ to catch her eye.

Johanna looked at me, at the floor, at the ceiling, anywhere but back at him.

Growing up, as I had, in a family where everyone was already paired off for eternity, I knew absolutely nothing about human mating rituals. But even I could tell the doctor was deeply interested in Johanna, and Johanna was deeply embarrassed by his attention.

I didn't know why she felt that way. But an idea began to form in the back of my mind.

"I have to go," Johanna announced abruptly.

"Oh, no, don't," Matt Bowers said, more quickly than he needed to. "You all were working on something, and I'm totally in the way. I'm sorry. I'll go."

"No, man, it's fine," Jacob told him when Johanna didn't speak.

"Thanks for finding the parts," the doctor told him. "I really appreciate it. Let me know what I owe you..."

Jacob waved away the offer. "It can wait ‘til next time, doc."

"Here, I'll help carry this stuff out to your car," I offered as Dr. Bowers struggled to balance several of the boxes at once. I took the one off the top. It wasn't heavy enough to make him suspicious.

I followed him outside, watching as he fumbled for his keys with one hand while trying to hold onto the boxes in the other. With effort he finally got the trunk open, and the boxes safely stowed inside.

"Thanks, Nessie," he told me earnestly. "That was really nice of you."

"No problem. I like to help out around here, and I like to keep Johanna company. See, Jake's trying to get Johanna's bike rebuilt, but in the meantime she doesn't have anything to do here. She doesn't know anybody but us, she has to sleep at the motel, _and_ she had to eat all her meals in the diner." I widened my eyes a bit. "That kind of sucks, you know?"

He looked thoughtful. "Yes, I imagine it does."

"Yeah, probably. See you around, Dr. Bowers."

"See you around, Nessie."

As his car made the turn out of Jacob's driveway I saw my father's car turning into it.

I hurried back to the garage.

"Is he gone?" Johanna demanded.

"Dr. Bowers? Yeah. What I nice guy," I observed idly. "Jacob, my dad is here to pick me up. Can I-I mean, may I come tomorrow, too? If you guys are going to work?"

"If it's OK with your mom and dad, then it's OK by me." Jacob smiled.

"Johanna, is it OK with you?" I turned back to my friend, who looked tense and unhappy. 

She just shrugged.

My father came into the garage. "Ready to go, Nessie?"

"Yeah, Dad. Just a second." I literally had to grab Johanna by the sleeve and tow her over to where my father was standing.

"Johanna Bergman, this is my father, Edward Cullen. Dad, this is Johanna."

My father smiled. "It's nice to meet you, Johanna. I've heard a lot about you." He held out his hand.

I was counting on Johanna to be polite, and although it took her a moment she finally shook his hand briefly. "Mr. Cullen."

It was funny to see them standing toe-to-toe. She was so tall that they were roughly the same height, but Johanna actually looked a few years older than my father did.

"Call me Edward, please." He glanced over at Jacob. "Nessie wasn't too much in the way, was she?"

"She never is," Jacob said quickly. "Hey, Johanna, come and give me a hand with mounting the starter, will you?"

"Yeah." The woman looked down at me for a moment. "See you around, kid," she said shortly.

"See you. Bye, Jacob."

"Bye, Nessie."

On the ride back to Forks my father was quiet for so long that I finally had to ask him what he was thinking. He answered my question with another question.

"Has Johanna told you anything about her parents?"

"Um, no, not really. Well, she said her mother died having her. Or at least, she said that's usually what happens. Except for Mom."

My father's hands tightened on the steering wheel, and I quickly changed the subject. I know he didn't like to be reminded of all the fear and grief of that time in our lives.

"So I asked her who raised her if her mom had died, if it was her father, and she got kind of touchy and said it wasn't him, it was another vampire her father had created a long time before." 

I looked over at his handsome profile. "Why? Dad, were you reading her mind? That was rude!"

I was suddenly angry. "She's my friend, Dad. The first friend I've ever had, except for Jacob. And you go and read her mind..."

"Not on purpose, sweetheart. You know I don't do that. But she was broadcasting some pretty strong thoughts for a moment there."

Against my will I was curious. "OK, then. So, what did you see?"

"A lot of anger," he said simply.

"At who? At you? Why would she be angry at you?"

"No, not at me, Nessie. But my presence clearly made her think of her own father, and that made her angry. More than angry. Furious."

"Why?"

"I'm not sure. Her thoughts were all jumbled together and didn't make much sense." He was quiet for a moment. "I got the impression that he had died shortly after she was born, and that she is still blaming him for that."

I shook my head. "No, Dad, you must have got it wrong. It was her mom that died. Her dad was a vampire, like you-he couldn't have died. And, even if somehow he did, why would she blame him for that? People don't die on purpose."

My father looked deeply puzzled. "I didn't get that part of the story, Nessie. But that's what she was thinking."

"That she doesn't like her father?"

"No, Nessie," he said quietly. "That she hates him. And I have absolutely no idea why."


	5. Planning

"Don't squirm, Nessie. I'm almost done." 

Carlisle smiled down at me as he held the measuring tape up to the sole of my left foot.

Measuring tapes were the bane of my existence. When I was little I actually used to sneak into my grandfather's lab to take them. If I was successful I'd hide them all over the house. 

But it never worked for long. Carlisle seemed to have an endless supply of them, and my father would just check my thoughts and retrieve the hidden ones.

I glanced down at the file next to me on the examination table. It was _my_ file, and it was almost as thick as a book now.

My grandfather had documented nearly every moment of my existence, almost from the moment my mother had discovered she was pregnant with me. Once I was born he'd delighted in jotting down notes about me: what I ate; when I learned to roll over, to speak, and to walk: and how quickly I grew. Hence all the measurements. 

On the one hand I got that, as a doctor, Carlisle liked to understand things. But on the other, I resented having to give up part of my morning to sit on the table while he measured all the same things he'd measured the week before. 

"All done. Hop on down," he finally said. "And thank you for your patience, as always."

"Sure," I said half-heartedly. Other than swiping his measuring tapes I had never told him how much I hated being examined. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was hurt his feelings.

"You're holding steady at about the same growth rate you've had all year." He picked up the file and carried it over to his desk. "No major changes, and that's a good thing."

Here on the upper floor of his house he'd made himself a second office, complete with much of the same equipment he had at the hospital. But it was here he kept all the books and papers he didn't want human eyes to see. My file was definitely in that category.

"But, Grandpa, it's not like you can ever publish this stuff or anything." I busied myself putting my sneakers back on. It was, of course, raining outside, and it would be a wet slog even if I ran fast.

"No, but it may prove useful in the future. The next time someone like you is born, perhaps I can help those involved be...better prepared."

He'd missed my own delivery because my mother had gone into labor unexpectedly. I had been born in this very room. In the end it was my father who'd had to deliver me.

"Johanna says that the mother always dies," I mused aloud. "And that a lot of the babies like me don't live for very long."

"Yes, well, from what you've told me she does seem to have more knowledge about hybrids than I do," Carlisle conceded. "But I don't think that outcome is necessarily a foregone conclusion. We managed to bring both you and your mother through it, thank God."

I couldn't mistake his tone. "You don't think she was telling me the truth?"

"No, Nessie. I'm sure she was telling you the truth as she knows it. But if there is one thing medicine teaches us it's that outcomes can be changed."

I stared out the window at the water sheeting down outside.

"I don't think Dad likes her much, either."

Carlisle paused for a moment. "That wasn't my impression. He said she was perfectly civil."

I shrugged my shoulders. In the glass I could see a girl with curly hair and a frowning face, her image rippled and distorted by the rain. "He saw something in her mind he said he didn't understand. He said she was angry."

"Well, you have only known her for a few days, Nessie." My grandfather sat down at his desk. "You can't expect to understand someone in so short a time."

I stuck out my lower lip mulishly. "She's like me."

"She's a hybrid like you," he corrected gently. "But she is a good deal older. And it sounds like her upbringing was...different from yours, to say the least."

"I believe her when she tells me things." I shrugged again. "I just do. It's hard to explain."

"Edward says you called her your only friend, besides Jacob Black. Did you really say that?"

"Yeah. Well, I wasn't counting family, of course."

"Nessie, I have to say I'm a bit surprised. You've never expressed a desire for more friends. In fact when you've been around other children you've always carefully avoided interaction with them as much as possible."

"Because they were children, Grandpa. That's not what I am."

His golden gaze was steady. 

"That is true enough. Your mind has always grown so quickly, even faster than your body has. I don't have any personal experience raising human children. But even as an infant I doubt you would have had much in common with them." 

He leaned back in his chair and sighed. "We still hope that when you're a bit older and you've stopped growing you can go to school for a time. High school, or perhaps directly on to college."

"Huh. That's the second time in two days someone's talked about me going to college. Jake was saying something like that yesterday," I explained.

"And what did he say?"

"Oh, just that Mom and Dad are making me study hard so I can go to a good one. I told him I wanted to stay here, but he said I should go out and see the world. Or something like that." 

"He's absolutely right. College is the sort of place you can be around humans on a day-to-day basis, so you can learn more about them. It's perhaps the most valuable thing our kind can do."

I thought of the art piece on the staircase, the one made of dozens upon dozens of mortarboards from all the family graduations. I wondered idly if that was to be my future: endlessly repeating my education.

There was a soft knock on the door, and a moment later my grandmother appeared. "Am I interrupting?" 

"No, we were just talking about Nessie's future educational plans." My grandfather laughed.

Esme's smile was radiant. "Were you? Well, I hear there are some excellent universities in British Columbia..."

"Darling..." My grandfather sounded mildly exasperated.

"Well, why not? The weather would be lovely. And that way she could come to us on the island every weekend." She turned to me. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"Sure, Grandma."

Esme looked smugly at her husband. "There, you see?"

Carlisle sighed. "You're incorrigible, Esme. You really are."

She wrinkled her pretty nose at him before turning back to me.

"So, Nessie, what are your plans for the rest of the day? Do you need a ride down to La Push?"

My Aunt Rosalie and Uncle Emmett were on a hunting trip, so I'd been excused from French lessons. And Jacob had called that morning, saying he was going to have to drive down to Hoquiam in search of a particular part. He hadn't been able to locate it in any of his junkyard searches.

Normally on rainy days like this I'd stay at home and curl up with good book, or play on the computer. But I had other plans for today.

"Actually, Grandma, if you could drop me off downtown that would be good. Mom and Dad said it was OK as long as I didn't go anywhere else without calling first."

"Downtown? What on earth is there to do down there in weather like this?"

My grandfather cleared his throat delicately.

"I believe," he said, "our granddaughter wants to go and visit her new friend."

\---

I ran through the heavy raindrops from my grandmother's car to the motel room door. 

It was easy to guess which room was Johanna's. All the others had their doors open, with cleaning ladies darting in and out with mops and squirt bottles. This one door was firmly closed.

I knocked hard. There was just enough of an overhang that I didn't get soaked standing there. But I could still feel cold water trickling down the back of my neck.

"I'll be there in a second, Nessie," Johanna called to me from somewhere inside. After a moment or two the door opened, and she looked down at me.

"You're persistent." She sounded resigned. "I'll give you that."

"How did you know it was me? Did you use your power?"

"Yes. That, and I don't know anybody else in this godforsaken town."

"Did Jacob call you about his trip?"

"Yes. So you're the last person I expected to see today."

"I thought you might be lonely."

She regarded me seriously. "I don't get lonely, kid."

I ignored her and turned. My grandmother's Lexus was still idling at the curb. She was leaning towards the passenger side window, so she could observe what was going on.

I knew she wanted to see Johanna for herself. Esme had such an affectionate nature. I knew it was killing her not to hop out of her car and invite Johanna over for a visit, or to go shopping, or to stay with them. That was just the sort of person she was. 

I waved so she'd know everything was fine.

Esme waved back, and then pulled away.

"That your mother?" Johanna asked.

"Uh uh. Grandmother. Well, not biologically, of course, but as good as."

She rolled her blue eyes. "Geez. I know _humans_ that don't have as many relatives as you do."

"Aren't you going to invite me in?" I peered over her shoulder into the room. 

The Lodge Motel had been built in the 1950s. It was a long, low structure, with the office and rooms on the street side and a parking lot in the back. From what I could see the rooms hadn't been redecorated since the place had opened. There was an ugly green bedspread on the bed, and the furniture was all heavy and dark. I shuddered to think what my Aunt Alice would say if she could see it.

"I was on my way over to the diner."

"Great. I'll go with you."

"Of course you will."

Johanna pulled the hood of her sweatshirt over her head to try and stay dry. I had on a raincoat and boots, at Esme's insistence, so I had no trouble keeping up with Johanna's long-legged stride.

"May I ask you something?"

"You always do."

"How long have you been living only on human food?"

Given the rainstorm there wasn't another soul out on the streets, so I felt quite safe speaking at a normal volume.

"A while," she said grudgingly.

"What's a while?"

"Eight years, two months, and twenty-one days."

"Wow. And before that...?"

"I hunted animals, mostly, with a little human food mixed in here and there. Or I went without." She looked down at me. "Go ahead, ask me what you really want to know."

I stared down at the puddles. "Did you ever hunt humans?"

"Of course. I was raised to believe that was the only possibility. It was only years later that I figured out there were alternatives."

This was a difficult subject. I had been given human blood as a baby, but it was donor blood Carlisle had obtained from legitimate suppliers. 

I had been raised to hunt animals-that was all I knew. Sometimes it didn't seem to fully satisfy me, especially if all I could catch was a deer or an elk. But if I could get a nice juicy cougar or a bear...how could human blood be so much better? 

Humans smelled good to me, of course, but I didn't see how I could ever look at one as food. Grandpa Charlie was human, as was Sue Clearwater, and little Claire, and Billy Black...I couldn't imagine ever hurting one of them, or even wanting to.

I tried to decide if the knowledge Johanna had once hunted humans changed my opinion of her. I quickly decided that it did not, anymore than it changed my opinion of my father or my other relatives. 

Vampires did what they did out of instinct. But reason and personal sacrifice, Carlisle always said, could overcome instinct. It had for him, and in return he'd gotten what he had wanted most in the world: a family. 

To me, that sounded like a fair trade.

Johanna pushed open the door to the diner, and I ducked under her arm. There was a crowd of people here today. The combined heat from their bodies and from the heating system had fogged up all the windows. Of course, I realized with a start, it was noon. Lunchtime for humans.

A harried looking young waitress came up to us. "Sorry, but we don't have any tables open just yet. Counter OK?"

"Fine," Johanna said shortly.

We were seated at the long, brownish countertop that ran almost the length of the room. It wasn't as crowded as the dining room itself. 

In the kitchen in front of us I could see two men hurrying back and forth between a sizzling griddle and a row of boiling pots. It looked almost like they were dancing as they moved in the tight space.

Once again Johanna ordered me a Coke I would not drink. She requested a bowl of soup for herself. Her hair was still wet from the rain and she combed her fingers through the long golden strands as they dried. 

The burly man on her other side gazed at her until she shot him a poisonous glance. He quickly huddled back down over his burger.

"So your parents let you out into the big, bad world, huh?" She said idly as we waited for our orders. 

"Just to come and see you. Then I'm supposed to go straight home."

She made a non-committal noise. 

"They worry," I explained. "They shouldn't, but they do. Mom says they can't help it. Didn't anyone ever worry over you like that?"

"No, I can't say they did."

I received my Coke, and dutifully unwrapped the straw I would not use. Johanna blew on a spoonful of soup before tasting it, even though it couldn't possibly burn her. It was funny the little rituals we did in front of the humans.

"What about your brother?"

"Joshua?" Her expression darkened. "No, Joshua wasn't a worrier."

"I'm sorry," I said quickly. "You don't have to talk about him if you don't want to."

"No, it's fine, whatever." She responded just as quickly. "It's just that Joshua's and my relationship is...complicated."

"But he took care of you when you were a baby." 

I could still remember being a baby, when my whole family's universe had seemed to center on me. In a lot of ways it still did.

I also remembered what my father had said, about Johanna being angry at her father.

"You're not mad at your brother, are you? He's not angry at you?"

Her expression changed into one I couldn't read. "Why would you ask something like that?"

"I was just wondering." I ducked my head down a bit. "But he doesn't hate you, right?"

She continued to dutifully eat her soup, once again without any evidence of enjoyment.

"No, Joshua doesn't hate me," she said after she swallowed. "But I think sometimes he wishes I'd never been born, and, believe me, in a lot of ways that's worse."

I found this shocking. How could you wish someone had never been born? 

I opened my mouth to ask, but was prevented by the sight of a familiar figure rising from one of the tables in the back of the room.

I abruptly remembered my idea of the previous day, and before I could lose my nerve I raised a hand and waved.

Dr. Bowers waved back. He has a Styrofoam cup of coffee in his hand and what looked like a takeout container of food. 

"Nessie, so help me God..." Johanna said through gritted teeth.

He came over to where we were sitting.

"Hello, ladies. Having a nice lunch?"

"Yes, thank you," I chirped. "And you?"

"Oh, just picking something up to take back to the hospital. Bit of a wait today, so I was visiting with some friends."

Johanna was staring straight ahead. I had no idea what in the kitchen she could find so fascinating. 

I patted the empty counter stool next to me.

"You don't have to leave right now, do you? Wanna sit for a minute?"

He looked from Johanna to me and back again, a trifle unsure. "I don't want to intrude."

"You're not," I assured him. 

"So," I asked as he sat down, "how's your, um, the new parts for your, um...?" I was completely out of my depth here.

"Exhaust system," Johanna corrected. 

I glanced at her with a grin. 

She shot me a cold glare. "What? I happen to have an excellent memory."

"Yeah, you do." The doctor was still looking at Johanna in that sunshine-y way, but he seemed to be making more of an effort to hide it than he had the day before. 

"And I think the parts will work, although as Jake warned me I have a bit of machining to do first. If I can ever get some time off to do it, of course. So, Johanna, are you on vacation here?"

"No," she said flatly. "Just passing through."

"Traveling, huh? That must be nice. And you, Nessie?"

"Me? No, I live here. But I'm home schooled, and I didn't have any lessons today..."

I knew I was babbling, but I couldn't help it. I had thought it was a good idea to get him to sit down, but now I had no idea what to do next. I tried to imagine what Esme might do in a similar situation.

"Johanna was on her way to Vancouver when her bike broke down," I tried again. "I've never been there. Have you, Matt?"

"Oh, many times. I used to live in Seattle, and some weekends I'd go up to BC. Great hiking and camping up there. Fishing, too."

"I've never been fishing. But we do hunt in my family." 

Johanna nearly choked on a spoonful of soup.

"Well, we do," I told her.

Thankfully the young doctor didn't notice. "And, of course, Vancouver has lots of great restaurants and night clubs...not that I'm much of a night club person..."

He was babbling now, too. It was cute.

"Johanna thinks Forks is too small, don't you, Johanna?" I offered.

"That's not exactly what I said."

"Well, it _is_ small, I agree with you there." Matt nodded. "But it's got its charms. Right, Nessie?"

I smiled at him. "Yep." 

"You're surrounded by forests, but you're still only half an hour from the ocean," he continued. "If you're desperate for something you can't get here there's always Port Angeles or Seattle or Portland. And the people are some of the best you'll meet anywhere."

"Yes, we're all very nice, aren't we, Johanna?" I asked.

She studiously ignored me.

"Take the staff at the hospital. I've only been here a few months, and they've done everything they can to make me feel welcome. You don't get that in the big cities. And the other surgeon on staff--Dr. Cullen--nicest guy in the world."

Johanna turned her sharp eyes back to me. "Is he now?" She smiled.

I squirmed a bit in my seat.

"His wife even sends me casseroles. Where else can a guy get that kind of treatment?" The doctor smiled ruefully at the takeout container in his hand. "Although of course sometimes I still have to shift for myself."

I swallowed hard. I had the distinct feeling Johanna was suddenly enjoying the conversation.

"Well, it's been nice chatting, but I'd better get back to work." 

He inclined his head at each of us. "Nessie, charming as always. Johanna, very nice to see you again."

She was smiling only because she was amused at my discomfort. But of course he didn't know that. She nodded at him, and he practically beamed.

He headed for the door, and the minute I heard the bell ringing as it opened I allowed my breath to leave my body in a _whoosh_.

"That was close," I said meekly.

"Good," she said. "Serves you right."

\---

The next few days settled into a comfortable rhythm. In the mornings I did my lessons, as always. Then in the afternoons Jake would either pick me up or my father would drive me down to La Push.

There I contentedly sat in Jacob's garage, quizzing Johanna about everything I could think of while the two adults worked. Sometimes she had answers for me, sometimes she didn't. But at least I asked.

I was happy.

How could I have known things were about to go so tragically wrong?


	6. Cruelty

Wednesday dawned dry and clear, if a little gray. Autumn was coming on strong now. But it looked like Forks was going to enjoy a few days without rain before the gloom of winter settled down on us for the next four or five months.

Best of all, Carlisle had been called in to the hospital in the middle of the night, and he still wasn't home yet. This meant I could zip through my science lessons on my own, without having to stop periodically so he could check my work. I figured he could do that later this evening. Esme, who was supervising me while setting out holiday decorations, had to agree.

My family didn't really go in for holidays, particularly not Halloween. Carlisle, who'd lived longer than most of the rest of us put together, tolerated it with good humor. But my aunts and uncles found it silly and vaguely insulting.

In any event, Esme wouldn't have dreamed of putting up the cardboard mummies and inflatable monsters typically found in homes this time of year. Instead she was setting up tasteful tablescapes of fall leaves, apples, and baby pumpkins on most of the flat surfaces in the house. They would stay until after Thanksgiving, when they would be replaced by candles and holly and sweet-smelling wreathes.

Martha Stewart had nothing on my grandmother.

I was back to the cottage before noon, where I proceeded to plead with my parents for clemency.

"Please can I go down and see Jake a little bit early?" I begged. "Please? The bike's almost done and I don't want to miss anything."

My mother, who was finishing the homework for her class that evening, glanced over at my father.

"Edward? What do you think?"

He set aside his book with a sigh. "I'll get my car keys."

"Cool! Thanks."

"I want you to change into a warm sweater first, though," my mother informed me.

I glanced down at my t-shirt. "Why? I'm not cold." I was never cold. Or hot, for that matter.

"But you're supposed to be in this kind of weather. Wear the new red one Alice got you in Portland. I think it's hanging by the back door."

Grumbling about having to keep up appearances, I trudged to the back door and pulled down the sweater. Like most of my clothes, it hadn't been worn yet. 

The last time she was home my Aunt Alice had swept through our house, replacing barely-worn clothes with brand new ones when we weren't looking. Alice was a big proponent of wearing clothes only once. My mother, who'd grown up in considerably more modest circumstances, objected to such an attitude, but there wasn't much she could do to stop her sister-in-law. Alice was a force of nature.

I yanked it over my head as I walked back into the living room.

"Oh, Nessie, now your hair's a mess." My mother set down her pen and held out a hand. "Come here and let me fix it for you."

Reluctantly I sat down next to her. With deft fingers she quickly braided it down my back. My mother's hair was smooth and silky. I loved my Grandpa Charlie, but why had I gotten stuck with his curls?

"Here." My father reappeared, a red ribbon in one hand and his keys in another. He held the ribbon out for my mother to take.

"No bows," I cautioned her as she tied it around the end of my braid.

"Wouldn't dream of it," she laughed. 

"Speaking of which," I began as I stood up again. "I had the weirdest dream last night. I dreamed the two of you were in my room, watching me sleep."

My mother was suddenly very interested in her homework. "Did you now?"

"Uh huh." I looked from one parent to the other. Neither one would look me in the eyes.

"You were, weren't you? You two were watching me sleep again!"

"No," my mother said.

"Yes," my father said at exactly the same time.

I rolled my eyes. "You guys have to quit doing that! I told you, it's weird."

"No it isn't. Parents do that all the time," my mother said quickly. "Charlie used to check on me from time to time, even when I was in high school."

"And you're growing so fast it's not like we'll be able to do it much longer," my father said reasonably.

They exchanged a sad glance. 

It had never occurred to me that, since they weren't going to get the full eighteen years of my growing up, my parents might feel a bit cheated. After all, if Carlisle and Johanna were right, in another two years or so I'd be as big as they were.

What a bizarre thought!

I decided to cut them some slack. 

"All right, fine. You can watch me sleep if it makes you feel better. But I still think it's weird." 

My mother suddenly shot my father an amused glance. Her lips twitched, as if she was remembering something amusing. He smiled back at her.

"What?" I demanded.

"Nothing. I'll explain when you're older." My father was abruptly hustling me towards the door.

See what I mean? Weird.

\---

I got to La Push in time to see Jacob and Johanna carefully rolling her motorcycle out of the garage.

I think I jumped out of my father's car before it had even stopped moving.

"You finished it?" 

I was both enthusiastic and disappointed. Enthusiastic, because it was great to see Jacob's hard work paying off. Disappointed, because I knew that as soon as that old Harley was running again, Johanna would leave. And I probably would never see her again.

"The rebuilt engine is in place," Jake corrected. "Now we have to do a test run."

I glanced at my friend. She had on a new leather jacket to replace the one that had been shredded in the accident.

"Where's your helmet?"

"Cracked," she said. She only had eyes for her bike.

"Hang on." Jake ducked inside, and a moment later emerged with one under his arm.

"It's old, but it'll work."

"Keeping up appearances," I said sagely.

"You got it." Jacob grinned.

"Fine, give it here." She yanked it on. The black helmet with its visor down made an interesting contrast with the bright blond of the hair down her back.

"Let's wheel it to the road. I don't want you spinning the tires on the gravel," Jacob cautioned. "It took me all last summer to get it in and leveled."

I couldn't see her face, but I suspected Johanna stuck her tongue out at him.

I maintained a careful distance while the two pushed the bike up the slight slope of Jacob's driveway. 

Johanna slung one of her long legs over the motorcycle's saddle the moment the wheels hit blacktop. She revved the motor.

It came to life with a throaty roar that quickly settled into a loud rumble.

"Sounds good," she shouted at Jacob over the noise.

He gave her thumbs up and gently nudged me a bit further back.

With the screech of tires on asphalt Johanna sped off down the road.

I unaccountably felt a lump rise in my throat.

"Looks good, Jake," I tried to say around it. My voice sounded a bit strangled.

"Ah, now, Nessie, she's coming right back."

"How do you know?"

He grinned. "She still owes me two hundred bucks, that's how I know. Now c'mon and help me clean things up a bit."

I reluctantly went back to the garage with Jacob. He set me to work sorting wrenches by size so they could go back into their custom case. It was the set I had given him last Christmas. It cheered me up a bit to see that, as my mother had promised, he was indeed using them.

Johanna was gone for perhaps ten minutes, but after an agonizing wait I finally heard the sound of the engine approaching.

This time she went ahead and pulled into the driveway, parking next to her rental car.

"Well," she announced as she pulled off the helmet, "now I can finally get rid of _that_ thing." She pointed a thumb at the green sedan.

"I dunno, Toyotas are so reliable..." Jacob began.

She shot him one of her coldest glares.

"Kidding!" He held up his hands. "In all seriousness, though, how does she run?"

"Great. If I didn't know better I'd assume this was the original engine."

"Hmm." He was studying the motorcycle with a critical eye. "You'll want to get it repainted, of course, and those damaged bits professionally re-chromed. But, all in all, I'm pretty pleased with it."

"You should open up a shop and fix motorcycles all day," I said encouragingly.

He laughed and tugged on my braid. "Don't need a shop to do that, Nessie. Not on the res, anyway."

I screwed up my courage. 

"So, does this mean you're leaving tonight?" I asked Johanna.

"Not until tomorrow." She frowned.

My heart jumped. "Really?"

"I can't, because thanks to _you_ I have a date tonight."

She definitely didn't sound happy about it, but I was thrilled.

"With Dr. Bowers? That's great!"

"Yeah, well, he kept turning up at the diner every time I was there. I can see why you like him-you're both stubborn as mules, and neither of you can take ‘no' for an answer."

Jacob did not look as pleased as I did. 

"Matt's a good guy," he told Johanna. "You shouldn't lead him on like this."

"Who's leading him on?" She demanded. "I told him that I wasn't interested in dating anybody, that I was going to be leaving town. I thought he got that. But this morning when I told him the bike was done he insisted on taking me out for a ‘goodbye' meal. Whatever that is."

Jake still looked concerned, but I grinned. 

"It'll be fine, Jacob, you'll see," I said.

He just grunted.

I hadn't missed what Johanna had said about leaving town tomorrow. But I was still hopeful that her plans might change.

"Hey, Johanna?" I asked. "May I have a ride on the back of your bike?"

For the first time ever she looked a bit unsure.

"Uh, yeah, if you want."

I turned to Jacob before he could open his mouth. "Please let me, Jake. I'll wear a helmet, and you know I can't get hurt. We don't have to go far. Please, please, please?"

I could tell he was torn between his need to keep me safe and his desire to indulge my every whim. This time, happily, the whim won out.

"A helmet _and_ my jacket," he insisted. He turned back to Johanna. "And you're not to take her on any of the main roads. You got that?"

She gave him a mocking salute. "Yes, sir."

\---

Riding on the back of Johanna's motorcycle was even better than I expected. Jacob's leather jacket was so huge on me it wrapped around my body twice, and the helmet was heavy sitting on my shoulders.

But it was fantastic to sit there hanging on to my friend for dear life as we sped down the road.

It was scary, but in a really wonderful way. Trees whizzed by so quickly they became a green blur, and I could feel the humming of the engine all the way to my fingertips.

"This is great!" I shouted over the noise of the wind. "Let's go all the way to Canada!"

I couldn't be sure, but I think under her own helmet Johanna laughed.

\---

That night I was restless.

My parents had gone in to Port Angeles for my mother's once-a-week night class. Sometimes my father sat in on the class, too. Or he attended whatever lecture or symposium was taking place on the campus that evening. They usually didn't get home until after I was in bed. My Uncle Emmett always called it their "date night," wiggling his eyebrows as he spoke.

I had no idea what he was talking about.

I supposed I could have gone over to my grandparents' house. Rosalie and Emmett had gotten back from their hunting trip, and I owed my grandfather a study session to replace the one I had missed with him that morning. But I had told my parents I'd rather stay on my own in the cottage, and they had agreed.

But now I couldn't settle down to anything. I didn't feel like reading, and we didn't have a TV. I could have played on the computer, but that didn't sound like fun either.

Maybe I needed a hunting trip of my own soon. That was probably it-I usually only felt anxious like this was I was starting to get hungry again. I decided I'd talk to my father about that tomorrow.

Tomorrow. That was what was really bothering me.

I knew-I'd always known-that Johanna would leave. She'd been very clear about that. Even though she'd been nice to me I had no real hold over her.

But I really, really didn't want her to go. 

It wasn't just that she was a hybrid, like me, although of course that was part of it.

She was also my friend. I liked hanging out with her, listening to her stories. I even liked her odd and sarcastic sense of humor.

I liked _her_.

There was only one thing that might keep her in Forks for a bit longer. Unfortunately it was now completely out of my hands. I just hoped Dr. Bowers would be able to give her a reason to stay.

Oh, God, what if he had taken her to dinner at the diner? He'd been a widower for some time-what if he'd forgotten how to date? I groaned inwardly.

No, that's silly, I quickly told myself. He's crazy about her. If he had to find a nice place he would have asked someone, maybe Grandpa. Maybe he took her to one of those restaurants along the coast, where they could look out over the ocean.

Yes. That idea soothed me a bit. I couldn't picture Johanna, as prickly as she was, exactly enjoying a romantic dinner in such a setting. But maybe he would win her over.

I amused myself for the next few hours by building castles in the air. The date would go so well Johanna would agree to stay for a few more days. Dr. Bowers would be able to get past her defenses and make her smile. They'd work on engines together. They'd be happy, and my grandmother wouldn't need to make casseroles for him anymore. 

At 10PM curiosity got the better of me. My parents still weren't back, and though I knew I should go to bed I decided to run down to town, just to take a peek.

I pulled the red sweater back on and quietly slipped out of the house. The only person who might have been able to guess what I was up to was my father, and thankfully he was too far away to read my mind.

The night was cold and damp, but there was still no rain. I ran though the forest on light feet, listening to the animals scurry away at my approach. Somewhere over my head an owl hooted loudly.

I reached the motel by coming around the back way through the trees. I didn't want anyone to see me jogging down Main Street at this time of night. They might call Charlie, and then I'd be in for it.

From there I had a complete view of the parking lot, but it was still empty except for Johanna's rental car. 

The parking lot lights made yellow pools on the asphalt. There wasn't any place to sit except for a broken chair next to the Dumpster, and I wasn't that desperate. I opted instead for standing by the corner of the building, so I could keep one eye on the street and the other on the parking lot.

After about ten minutes I heard an engine and saw Dr. Bowers' Impala turn in to the motel. They drove past me into the lot, and through the windshield I could tell they were both surprised to see me standing there. 

A moment later the engine shut off and they got out.

"Nessie, what are you doing here this time of night?" Johanna asked as she approached me.

"Is anything wrong?" Matt came to stand beside her. "Do your parents know you're here?"

"Oh, you didn't wear a dress," I said in disappointment. Johanna was wearing the same thing I'd seen her in earlier that day.

"Don't have one, kid." She laid a hand on my shoulder. "I appreciate you playing chaperone, but it's really late. I think I'd better take you home."

"We can take my car," the doctor offered. He wasn't wearing a suit, as I'd pictured in my mind's eye, but at least he had on a tie. He looked happy.

She nodded at him. I noticed her body language did seem a bit friendlier, a bit looser. "Thanks."

"You should have said you didn't have a dress," I scolded her as we walked the short distance back to the car. "My aunts could have loaned you one."

She stopped so suddenly that I almost walked right into her.

That's when the smell hit me. 

It was familiar, and yet not.

I froze. 

It was the scent of vampires. Vampires I didn't know.

It took Dr. Bowers a moment to notice anything was wrong. 

His keys in his hand, he looked back quizzically at us. We must have looked as if we'd suddenly sprouted roots holding us to the earth, we were so still.

"What is it?" He laughed.

Johanna did not laugh. Her face a frozen mask, she only uttered four words.

"Nessie, move. Hide. Now."

She didn't have to say another word. 

I ran as fast as I could, back to the Dumpster. I crouched down in its shadows. I knew I should run for home, but without knowing what the threat was I wasn't sure if I'd make it or not.

Was it the Volturi? Had they come back for me?

"Where's Nessie?" I could hear the doctor ask. He sounded confused and a little alarmed. I had moved so quickly he hadn't seen me do it. One minute I had been there, the next I was gone.

"Matt, run."

Johanna's voice again, the pitch rising in urgency.

"What? Why? What's going on?"

"Matt, please, I'm begging you. Run!"

I peeked back around the corner so I could see what was happening.

A third person had appeared. He was a tall man, with a formal black coat and long, perfectly smooth blond hair. In the sickly lights overhead I could see that he was handsome, with a wide brow and a patrician nose. He had probably the cruelest mouth I had ever seen.

It was smiling now, but there was no warmth there. Only malice.

"Johanna. You've kept me waiting." He spoke slowly, in a rich baritone that would have been charming if it didn't send chills down my spine.

Johanna still hadn't moved. She seemed well and truly frozen now, watching the stranger approach with dead eyes.

Only he wasn't a stranger to her.

"Lucas," she said shortly. "Not here."

"Oh, I think here is a very good place."

"Lucas, please."

Dr. Bowers was looking from one to the other. I knew that even as a human he could sense Johanna's fear, and the malice radiating from this other being. But there was no way he could understand the danger he was in. 

I wanted to cry out to him to run, as Johanna had, but my tongue suddenly seemed numb. How could I help him without revealing myself?

"Johanna, who is this?" The doctor asked.

"Matt, please, just get in your car and go. I'm fine. Really."

The other vampire was still advancing. He was moving at human speed, but he was only a few feet away now. 

Matthew only had eyes for Johanna. "You don't look fine. Come with me."

"I can't. Just go. I'll call you tomorrow."

"Yes, she'll call you _tomorrow_ ," the vampire echoed, drawing out the word ‘tomorrow' as if it was a line in a song.

Dr. Bowers did what any human male would do under such circumstances. He moved to stand in front of Johanna, as if he could shield her.

"Look," he said to the other man, "I don't know who you think you are..."

The rest of his words were choked off as the vampire's white hand shot out and seized him by the throat. 

The human was lifted off his feet, his face turning blue as he stared down confusedly into the red eyes of the vampire.

"You _dare_ to step in my path?" The other man hissed. " _Insect_!"

Johanna was all motion now. She seized the vampire's arm, trying to force it back down. She was strong, but the full-blooded vampire was stronger.

"Put him down, Lucas. If you hurt him, so help me..." She growled.

"Oh, yes, wouldn't want to hurt the poor little human," Luca mocked. "That would be a great pity."

He shook her off and flung the doctor across the parking lot like a rag doll.

Johanna ran to Matthew, but before she could reach him there was a new vampire in her path, a mountain of a man. With his hands curled like claws he struck her full in the face, sending her tumbling backwards into a light pole. The force of the impact nearly bent it in two. 

"Hugo, there is another vampire nearby," Luca said in his cold voice. "Find it for me."

The lumbering vampire nodded and began to search.

I finally convinced my frozen body to move, and I dove forward, slithering under the still warm engine of the doctor's Impala. I squeezed my eyes shut, thinking as hard as I could, trying to get my father to hear me all the way in Port Angeles.

_What do I do, Dad?_ I thought. _Do I fight? Do I run? They're so much bigger than me..._

"There isn't anyone else here, Lucas." Johanna had staggered back to her feet. Peering out from under the car I could see blood trickling down her face. 

"Just me." She took a few steps forward. "You wanted me, here I am."

"You're no fun, Johanna, you know that?" He sighed theatrically. "Here I've been chasing you from continent to continent for years, and all of a sudden you're going to give up? Just like that?"

"This is a human town, Lucas. There's no need for anyone else to get hurt." She looked pointedly at where the young doctor still lay, moaning softly. One of his legs was clearly broken, but from here I couldn't see how badly he was otherwise injured.

"Hmm. Hugo, never mind that. Go and get the human."

The enormous vampire, who was sniffing suspiciously at the bushes where I'd been earlier, nodded and changed directions.

I allowed myself to take a quick breath. Clearly this vampire was no tracker, and not very bright to boot. And Lucas was too distracted to bother looking himself.

"Leave him alone!" Johanna allowed herself to move at her real speed now, and got to the doctor a split second after Lucas and Hugo did.

She seized Hugo from behind, using her strength to twist the thick neck so far around it would have been fatal to a human. He clawed at her, but she held on like a ferocious cat, using her teeth to bite at his ears and scalp until she drew blood.

I'd never seen vampires fight physically before. It was horrifying, but I couldn't look away.

Johanna abruptly let go of him, and he staggered and fell. That gave her almost enough time to get her hands on Lucas. But just as she did so Hugo seized her by the leg and slammed her back on the asphalt with bone-crunching force.

Lucas turned back to the doctor with an angelic smile.

I covered my eyes, but I could still hear Matt screaming.

Minutes may have passed, or perhaps only seconds, but my ears made out a new sound, mercifully close and coming closer. 

It was the sound of sirens.

For a split-second I was relieved, but my relief quickly gave way to horror. Charlie could be with them-oh, God, not Grandpa Charlie, please...

Lucas abruptly dropped the doctor.

"Hugo," he said as calmly as if he did not have a broken, bleeding man writhing at his feet. "I think perhaps we should go. There's time enough to finish our business later, and we don't want to draw attention to ourselves unnecessarily."

The other vampire looked disappointed, but as quickly as they had come the two vanished into the night, moving westward across the town.

I panted hard, and forced myself to crawl out from under the car. My knees were shaking, and my hands were shaking, and the sirens were getting closer every second.

I went to Johanna and put a hand on her shoulder. She wasn't moving, but she was breathing.

I knew what I had to do. 

I bent down and wrapped my arms under her limp ones, and pulled.

I wasn't that strong yet, but I was considerably stronger than a human. I was able to drag Johanna's inert form back into the woods just as the first squad car turned in to the motel driveway.

I didn't stop, dragging her backwards over roots and thorns and dirt for what seemed like miles. I wasn't tired-I couldn't get tired-but my heart still hammered and I couldn't catch my breath.

When we reached a clearing I finally let her go. Her body slumped limply to the ground.

I sat next to her, my eyes wide with fear, listening for the police following me, listening for Lucas' return.

But all I could hear were the night sounds of animals and my own breathing.

I put my hands over my face.

"Dad!" I cried out, so loudly that birds overhead were started out of sleep and into flight. "Carlisle! Help me!"

And, as if by magic, suddenly my grandfather was there beside me.


	7. Guilt

"Is she dead?" I asked my grandfather yet again as he bent over Johanna's limp body. He had carried her back to the house and laid her carefully on the downstairs sofa. 

My grandmother stood behind me, hugging me to her. Rosalie and Emmett hovered in the background as if they couldn't quite decide if they wanted to stay or to rush out, find whoever had done this, and rip their heads off. 

Which, by the way, they totally could do.

"She's fine, Nessie. See, the bleeding has already stopped." 

Carlisle was using a bottle of sterile saline to carefully wash the dried blood from my friend's face. 

"But I don't understand-I thought we were indestructible, Grandpa."

"Only to a certain point," he gently explained. "Humans can't hurt us, but vampire teeth can break our skin. Werewolves, because they are so strong, can injure us, as can other vampires. Fire can consume our bodies. And remember that both you and Johanna are still half-human. But do you see how quickly she's healing?"

As I watched the bruises on Johanna's pale skin seemed to be lightening by the second. Her slow breathing was growing easier. 

"There are definitely advantages to being part-vampire. We just need to let her body do its healing, and she should be as good as new in an hour or two," he counseled.

As a courtesy to the rest of us he gathered up the blood-spotted towels and quickly removed them from the room.

"Are you sure you're all right?" He asked me again as soon as he returned.

Esme had already felt all my limbs and all over my head, looking for any damage. There wasn't any.

"No, they weren't after me." I chewed my lip. "They were after _her_."

"But you're sure they knew each other?" My Aunt Rosalie spoke up for the first time.

I thought hard for a moment. "Yeah. The leader, anyway--they called each other by name. Johanna called him Lucas. The other guy was bigger, but Lucas was definitely the leader."

I glanced again at my friend's inert form. 

"She was terrified of him. And poor Dr. Bowers-she told him to run, but he didn't, and I could only help one of them, I wasn't strong enough..." 

As I remembered fear washed over me until it hurt just to breathe. I gasped for air like a fish.

Esme hugged me closer.

"You did the right thing, squirt," Emmett told me in his gruff way. "If the paramedics had gotten their hands on Johanna all hell would have broken loose by now."

We were all quiet for a moment, imagining Johanna's abnormal heart beating out its strange rhythm on an EKG, needles breaking against her skin when they tried to put in an IV...

As if on cue, my grandfather's pager started to beep. He glanced at it quickly. "That will be the hospital now. I'll go in and see how bad Matt's injuries are, see if I can help."

I remembered the young doctor's screams. "It's bad, Grandpa."

He laid a reassuring hand on my shoulder, and then left the room.

Esme tucked a pillow under Johanna's head, smoothing her long blond hair. 

She turned to her oldest daughter. "Rosalie, please go upstairs and see if you can find a clean shirt for her. She'll want to change as soon as she wakes up."

Rosalie nodded and headed upstairs.

With a sigh my grandmother sat down in the closest chair and pulled me into her lap. I didn't protest, instead snuggling into her embrace as I had when I was a baby.

"How did Carlisle know where to find me?" I asked. "It was like I called his name, and a second later he was there."

"He was already looking for you," Emmett told me. "Alice called."

I frowned. "But Aunt Alice can't see my future clearly. That means she can't see Johanna very well, either."

"No, but she could see the path those creeps were on, leading straight to you." Emmett's large hands curled unconsciously into fists as he spoke. If there had been anything in them it would have been crushed into a powder. "She knew you were in danger. She and Jasper wanted to hop the first plane down, but Carlisle told them to sit tight until we know what we are dealing with here."

The front door burst open, and my dad swirled into the room as if at the front of a great storm.

"Something tells me Alice called your father as well," Esme said dryly.

"Dad!" I jumped into his arms, wrapping my arms and legs around him like a monkey. "I was so scared! Where's Mom? Is she...?"

"Shush, now, Nessie," my father said gently. "Your mother's on her way in the car. We decided it would be faster if I came on foot, but she's probably breaking every speed limit between here and Port Angeles as we speak." 

He looked at his brother and mother. "Charlie and his deputies are already at the motel. If we're lucky, Carlisle can convince everyone that Dr. Bowers was injured in an animal attack."

"And if he can't?" Esme asked.

"We need to find those two, now," Emmett insisted. "Before they can wreck any more havoc."

"Johanna's coming around," Esme said softly. She went to the woman and laid a hand on her forehead.

My friend blinked unsteadily for a moment, and then looked quickly around the room until she saw me in my father's arms. She relaxed noticeably. The bruises were already gone, except for the darkest one under her right eye. She tried to sit up, but Esme gently pressed her back.

"Stay still. Your internal injuries are healing quickly, but if you move now things might not set properly."

"I've had worse injuries than this." Johanna looked at me again. "Where's Matthew?"

"They took him to the hospital," I explained. "My grandfather's with him there now."

She swallowed convulsively, and then closed her eyes. "I knew something like this would happen."

"Something like what?" Emmett demanded.

"I got the reading wrong," she mumbled more to herself than to us. "Nessie said there were eight of you, and I saw eight."

"My other daughter and her husband have been in Vancouver for months," Esme explained.

"I thought it must be residual energy. That happens sometimes. But the other two weren't yours at all. Lucas was closer behind me than I thought, and he brought help this time."

"But what did he want?" I asked.

She was quiet for a long moment. "Me," she finally said. "He wants me."

"Why?" Rosalie had rejoined us with a blue t-shirt folded neatly over her arm.

Johanna sighed heavily. I'd never seen her look so...defeated.

"Are you his wife?" My aunt demanded in her blunt way.

Johanna's head snapped up. "God, no." She shuddered. "Don't even joke about that."

"Then, what, exactly?" Rosalie demanded. "How can we help you if we don't know what's going on?"

Every pair of golden eyes in the room shifted to her. 

"Oh, like you all weren't thinking the same thing," Rosalie scoffed with a toss of her beautiful hair.

Johanna's response was interrupted by the screeching of tires outside. A second later my mother was in the room. Her arms were around my father, with me in the middle like a vampire sandwich.

"Nessie, oh, thank God," she moaned. "Alice told your father she thought you were going to be OK, but we didn't know..."

"I'm OK, Mom, really." Normally I'd be embarrassed by all the affection, but after the stressful last few hours I actually reveled in it. "How was your class?"

The non-sequitor made my father laugh out loud, and even my mother smiled tremulously. 

My father set me down, and gently laid a hand on either side of my face, so he could look into my eyes. "Tell us what happened. Start at the beginning, and don't leave anything out, no matter how minor. It might be important.

So I carefully began recounting the evening's events, starting from when I'd left the house. My family all listened carefully. Johanna stared at a fixed point in the wall in front of her. I don't know what she was seeing.

"As soon as they heard the sirens they left," I finally said. "Lucas said he didn't want a fight with humans that would draw attention to his presence here. And I knew I couldn't let the police or the paramedics treat Johanna, so I dragged her into the woods as far as I could."

"That was quick thinking, Nessie," my father complemented, although his thoughts seemed to be far away. 

"Nessie's right," Johanna spoke up quietly. "They don't want a fight, not with you or with anyone else. If I leave with them now..."

"You can't do that!" I cried in horror. "They just tried to kill you!"

"No, they didn't." Johanna corrected. "They know I'm just about as tough as they are. They were trying to scare me, and they did a pretty damn good job." She swung her feet down onto the floor and sat up. "The sooner I leave the sooner everything here will get back to normal."

"You can't," I repeated, quietly this time.

"I almost got Matthew killed tonight, kid." She looked at me steadily. "I'll not have anything else like that on my conscience."

My mother hadn't spoken in several minutes. But out of the corner of my eye I noticed that she suddenly seemed even paler than usual. She was rubbing absently at the crescent-shaped scar on her hand.

My father understood what she was thinking, because he reached out and put an arm around her.

"He's been hunting you," she said softly to Johanna.

"Not exactly."

"We have company," my father announced abruptly. He was turned towards the vast expanse of glass windows and the dark forest beyond.

"The wolf pack?" Emmett asked.

"Just Jacob and Seth. But Sam is not too far behind."

I didn't wait for my parents. Instead I dashed to the front door and threw it open. 

"I'm OK, Jacob! Tell Sam and the others that I'm OK!" 

I stood staring out into the darkness. I thought I could just make out the immense furry shapes of the wolves as they moved through the trees.

"We do have a serious problem, Jake." My mother spoke from behind me.

"He knows," my father said. "He's on his way."

A moment later, Jacob appeared in human form, dressed only in a pair of raggedly old sweatpants. He immediately picked me up and stared right into my eyes.

"Don't you ever scare me like that again, Nessie," he growled.

"I won't," I vowed. "Promise."

With a satisfied grunt he set me down again. 

"You're damn right we have a problem. Seth was running patrol and he smelled something or someone that shouldn't have been in the area," he said shortly. "He alerted me, and I passed it on the rest of the pack."

My father was listening carefully, not to Jacob's words but to what was going on his head. His golden eyes narrowed for a moment, and then widened in alarm.

"No," he said.

"Will you at least let me speak?" Jacob demanded. My father's gift for mind-reading had always irritated him.

"No one broke the treaty, Jacob." My father continued as if Jacob hadn't spoken. "You and the others must know that."

My mother sucked in a sharp breath.

"Broke the treaty how, Mom?" I demanded. "What's he talking about?"

An expression of utter horror appeared on both of my parents' faces at the same time. I tugged urgently on my mother's sleeve. "Mom, what is it? What's wrong?'

"Edward."

Uncle Emmett had appeared in the doorway. He had his cell phone in his hand. His mouth was set in a flat grim line, and his voice had been unusually quiet.

"It's Carlisle," my father said softly.

"Yes." Emmett did not look at anyone except his brother. 

"He needs us."

"Yes."

My father touched my mother gently on the shoulder. "Stay here with Rosalie and Esme. Don't let Johanna leave. We'll be back soon."

She nodded silently.

There were moments I really hated the way my parents communicated with each other, and this was one of them. I wasn't able to make heads or tails out of what they were saying, but something momentous and terrible seemed to be happening.

Jacob turned me around and started walking me into the house.

"Hey, what's going on?" I demanded as he frog-marched me into the kitchen. "Why won't anyone ever tell me anything?"

"Be quiet, Nessie, and I'll make you some hot chocolate."

I sat down at the table and dropped my head onto my folded arms. "I don't drink hot chocolate."

"Then I'll make myself some." He smiled at me, but it didn't seem to reach his eyes the way it usually did. "It's going to be a long night."

\---

I must have dozed off there at the table, because the last thing I remembered was sitting across the table from Jacob while he placidly sipped from a china mug.

I got up still rubbing the sleep from my eyes. I couldn't have been asleep for more than an hour or two, but the kitchen and living room were now deserted. 

The only thing I could hear was a commotion somewhere above me. 

I cautiously made my way up the stairs. Every light in the house was on, and yet the air still felt heavy and dark. The glass and steel of my grandparents' house seemed to be pressing in on me.

I paused on the first floor landing.

"Hold him down, but carefully, Emmett." I could hear my grandfather's voice. It was low but almost humming with tension.

"What the hell is going on?" A louder voice-Johanna's voice-demanded.

As I crept down the hall towards my grandfather's lab I could hear a new sound, a rhythmic, sobbing gasp unlike anything I'd ever heard before. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up and my blood run cold.

There were more murmurings and whispers from behind the closed door at the end of the hall. And, still, that terrible, wrenching sound.

"Johanna, this isn't going to help..." Esme's voice.

"Get your hands off me. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO HIM?!" Johanna's voice again, louder, screaming this time.

I jumped as the door opened. 

"Nessie, you shouldn't be here." My father approached me quickly on silent feet. "Go downstairs, now."

"No, Dad, not until you tell me what's going on."

"Nessie..." 

He reached for me, but I quickly ducked under his outstretched arm and into the room.

I only ever came into my grandfather's lab when he needed to measure me, or when he wanted to show me something in one of his medical books. I'd never seen it actually being _used_.

But it was now. 

At first my eyes could make no sense of the blood-stained bundle of shredded clothes on the table. But it moved, and heaved, and I realized it was a person.

My Aunt Rosalie was holding that someone down by the shoulders, and my Uncle Emmett was holding him or her down by his feet. 

Carlisle was seated next to the table, trying to help them with the thrashing figure. 

Esme stood back, out of the way. 

Johanna was right on the other side, looking from Carlisle to the person and back again, as if this all must be some sort of horrible dream.

"...it had already begun to heal by the time I got to the hospital," my grandfather was saying quietly, his voice almost drowned out by the sobbing gasps. "There was no way to remove the venom. I'm so sorry."

I didn't know if he was speaking to the person on the table, or to Johanna. 

"They gave him some painkillers in the hospital, but I'm going to give him something stronger before he injures himself." My grandfather was filling a syringe with a clear liquid from a glass vial.

As I stared the figure turned its head to the other side, and I recognized Matthew Bowers.

He didn't look like the same person. He was bloodied and bruised. His face was contorted, his mouth open, and his whole body writhed as if burning over an open flame. 

"Esme, would you help me hold his arm still?" Carlisle asked his wife.

Between the two of them the managed to pull Matt's right arm straight so Carlisle could administer the injection. 

The young doctor struggled even as the needle pierced his skin. Just below the inside of his elbow I could see the large, livid, crescent-shaped bite marks.

I had barely had time to process what I was seeing before my father threw me over his shoulder and carried me out of the room.

I kicked and screamed like a baby, but he wouldn't put me down. 

He carried me down the hall and into the guest bedroom, the one that used to be his. He set me down hard on the edge of the bed.

"Nessie, stop."

But I couldn't. No amount of screaming could obliterate the horror of what I had just seen.

He took me by the shoulder and shook me gently. "Nessie. Stop."

"My f-f-fault," I said through heaving breaths.

"What do you mean, baby?"

"All...my...fault," I managed to get out.

After that there was nothing he could do except hold me in his arms while I gasped and sobbed tearlessly, still unable to drown out the terrible sounds from the other side of the house.

\---

I opened my eyes, and I was in my own bed. For a moment I lay there watching the watery sunlight trace patterns in the lace canopy, wondering if the events of the night before had been some horrible dream.

But no, I realized with a sinking feeling. My memories were far too vivid for them to have been a dream.

My mother was curled up beside me, and when I sat up she did, too.

"How are you feeling, sweetheart?"

"I've been better. Where were you?" I demanded.

"Jacob and I went down to La Push, to explain to the tribal elders what happened. They understand that since it wasn't one of the Cullens who bit Matthew the treaty technically hasn't been broken. They're not happy, of course, but under such terrible circumstances who could be?"

She regarded me for a long moment.

"Your father said that last night you told him this was all your fault, Nessie. You have to know that isn't true."

"It _is_ true, Mom." I folded my arms across my chest and flopped back down again so I didn't have to look her in the eyes.

"Renesmee, I carried you. I know you better than anyone else in this whole world, except maybe your dad. I know what a careful conscience you have." 

Her golden eyes became steely. "But I will _**not**_ let you blame yourself for Matthew and Johanna getting hurt."

I huffed, trying not to cry.

I held out my hands. "Here, I'll show you."

She took my hands in hers, and I showed her what I had seen and felt: the way Dr. Bowers had looked at Johanna that day in Jacob's garage; the way I had encouraged him, letting him know where she would be, what she was doing; how I had practically forced them into that final, fatal date. How I had wished and hoped that he would fall in love with her, and she with him, so she would stay in Forks forever.

When I was done my mother pulled me closer. 

"Nessie, you were trying to do a nice thing! You were trying to encourage two lonely people into a relationship."

"It was wrong, Mom."

She shook her head. "It was wrong only in the sense that you shouldn't try to manipulate people into doing what you want. It never works. But your intentions were sweet and noble and good."

"But if they hadn't been out together last night, if she hadn't been distracted, those other vampires might not have been able to get that close to Johanna. Lucas wouldn't have been able to bite Dr. Bowers when he attacked him." Now, in the daylight, it was a little bit easier to piece the chronology of events together. 

Injustice burned in the pit of my stomach. "Why would he do such a thing?"

My mother's face was solemn.

"What, Mom?"

She sighed. "Johanna says Lucas did it because he knew it would hurt her. And that's about all she's said. She won't speak to any of us. She just sits outside Matthew's room and stares at the wall."

She hugged me again. "I'm so sorry you had to see Dr. Bowers like that, Nessie."

"Is that what happened to you?" I demanded. "Did you scream like that?"

My mother took a deep breath. 

"Not exactly. The...transformation is always very painful. Carlisle has been trying to find ways around that. In my case I had already received morphine for your delivery, and I suspect that may have spared me the worst of it."

I wasn't buying that. "But it still hurt, right?"

My mother regarded me seriously. "Yes, Nessie, it did. But I was prepared for that-physically and psychologically. I knew what to expect, and I wouldn't change anything. You know that Carlisle has always refused to change anyone unless they were already at the point of death. Your father feels exactly the same way. I didn't understand why for a long time, but now I do." 

She stared ahead of her in silence for a long moment. 

"For something like this to be forced on you, for no reason, and with no preparation...that's inexcusable, Nessie, always. You know that's what happened to your Uncle Jasper, and he's been struggling to come to terms with it ever since."

I jumped off the bed and began to pace. 

"But what's the point of good vampires like Dad and Grandpa trying to play by a set of rules when there are horrible ones like Lucas out there who are just going to hurt people anyway?"

"Sweetheart, I wish I had the perfect answer to that, I really do. All I can tell you is that, from what I've seen, what I've experienced, the good ones like your father and grandfather exist because _someone_ has to stand up to the bad ones."

Her explanation only made the ache in my chest worst.

There were no easy answers anymore.

Only more questions.


	8. Sorrow

For the next few days Matthew remained hidden away in the upstairs room at my grandparents' house. Carlisle, Dad said, was carefully keeping vigil over Matthew, trying to keep him as comfortable as possible. But I knew the man must still be in a great deal of pain. 

Emmett, Rosalie, and the wolf pack took turns patrolling the woods, but there was no sign of Lucas or Hugo. 

My parents tried to keep me busy in the cottage, and away from my grandparents' house. But by the afternoon of the third day I was pleading with them to let me go and check on things. As worn out from worry as I was, they finally agreed, but only on the condition that they accompany me. 

I could feel the tension in the air as soon as I stepped over the threshold.

"Any news?" My mother asked Esme quietly.

"Not yet." My grandmother looked at me with a soft smile. "I'm glad you're here, Nessie. Would you come upstairs and see if you can convince Johanna to eat something? I'm afraid I haven't had any luck."

I glanced at my father, and he nodded curtly. "Go ahead. I'm going to see if Emmett has heard anything."

I took my grandmother's hand and we went up the stairs. I was relieved that the house I loved so much no longer seemed dark and oppressive. 

But my stomach still was doing little flip-flops. I didn't think I'd ever forget the expression on Matthew's face. It was hard to know he was suffering and that we couldn't do anything to help him.

I must have unconsciously transmitted some of these thoughts, because my grandmother paused on the landing and squeezed my hand.

"I know it's hard, Nessie," she told me. "It always is. But we just have to bear it."

My grandmother, of course, had seen this happen before, with two of her children, Emmett and Rosalie, and then with my mother. All three had been dying and had been transformed to save their lives. 

I thought again of what my mother had said, about this being forced on Matthew without necessity, knowledge, or consent.

"I liked him," I told Esme quietly. "But he won't be the same person anymore, will he?"

"There's no way to know that. We just have to hope for the best." She planted a kiss on the top of my head.

Johanna was sitting outside the door to my grandfather's lab. She glanced up briefly as we approached, but said nothing. A plate with an untouched sandwich on it was on the floor next to her.

My grandmother gave me an encouraging nod and then left us alone.

I sat down next to my friend.

She was still wearing the same clothes she'd been in the night of the attack, along with Rosalie's blue shirt. Her hair was a mess, and there were dark rings around her eyes. Her skin was pale and grayish. From not eating, I supposed.

"You shouldn't be here, kid," she said shortly.

"You shouldn't either," I retorted. "You won't do Matt any good if you make yourself sick."

She laughed bitterly. "'Do him any good'? I think I've already caused enough damage, don't you?"

"It wasn't your fault."

She looked at me incredulously. 

"It wasn't," I repeated.

Johanna shook her head. "You don't know the whole story."

I ground my teeth in frustration. "Then tell me."

But she just shook her head mutely, and resumed staring at the opposite wall.

I sat with her for almost an hour, trying to talk some sense into her, but she ignored me. I finally got tired of being treated as if I were a potted plant and went back downstairs.

Esme and my mother looked up hopefully as I approached, but I shook my head.

"Sorry. She won't listen to me, either," I grumbled.

My mother sighed. "At least you tried. That's the important thing."

I sat down in the living room while my mother and grandmother discussed things in hushed tones. I gathered from their conversation that the people in Forks thought that Matt had been bitten by a wild animal. 

The police, responding to an anonymous 911 call about the noise, had found Matt lying on the ground in the parking lot. By then he'd been screaming in agony. The police hadn't known why, or what had happened to him. 

The paramedics had been the ones to discover the bite wounds, Esme explained. 

But vampire bites heal quickly. The wounds had appeared several days old to their untrained eyes. At the hospital it had not taken Carlisle much work to convince the rest of the staff that Matt had contracted rabies and needed specialty treatment unavailable in our small town.

"People believe what they want to believe." My mother sighed. "If that's the story that makes sense to them, we should leave it at that."

"Not everyone is as persistent as you were, dear." Esme patted my mother's hand.

"And thank goodness for that," my mother said wryly.

They both laughed softly.

Hours passed. My father had not yet returned. I knew my mother would not risk our leaving the house without him, even for the short walk back to our cottage.

I continued to sit there, listening to them talk. When I wasn't listening, I was brooding. I knew in my head that my mother was right, that I hadn't caused any of this. 

But I still felt horrible. 

Matthew's life as he knew it was over. My best friend seemed determined to starve herself out of guilt and remorse. My loved ones and best friend were out patrolling the woods looking for a threat that none of us had seen coming. And my new shoes were already starting to pinch, meaning I was about to grow out of them before I'd even broken them in.

I sighed and stared out into the forest beyond the walls of glass. Outside the sun was just beginning to set, coloring the sky in shades of orange and peach. 

Abruptly both my mother and grandmother rose to their feet. The movement snapped me out of my reverie.

"What is it?" I demanded.

But neither woman answered me. Their attention was fixed on the front door, just a few feet away from where I sat.

I wished for a moment that I had Johanna's power, and that I could instantly tell what sort of being was on the other side.

But I had something almost as good. 

I took a deep breath.

I could detect my father, and the unmistakable animal smell I knew to be Jake. Rosalie always called him a dog because of that musky, almost spicy, smell. But I'd never found it offensive in the least. It was just a part of Jacob.

"It's Jake and Dad," I reassured them "It's OK."

"Move away from the door, Nessie," my mother said quietly.

Her tone was so firm I didn't dare disobey. I quickly got up and went to stand behind them.

The door opened, and my father and Jacob entered.

Between them was a vampire. But it wasn't Lucas or Hugo. This was a vampire I'd never seen before.

He was tall and lean. In life he'd been African or African-American. But as an immortal his skin was a pale, ashy color, as was his close-cropped hair. It was as if eternal life was slowed leeching the color right out of him.

He stood surveying the room in silence for a moment, taking the measure of everything and everyone in it. His back was ramrod straight, and although he was careful not to make any sudden movements I had the sense that he did not consider any of us to be much of a threat.

His expressionless face was turned to me for only a second, but I still shivered. I was used to the golden eyes of my family members. The crimson-colored eyes of blood-drinking vampires always scared me a bit. Even in the kindest face they glowed like hot coals. And this face was not a kind one.

I chewed my lip nervously.

"Bella, Esme, this is Joshua," my father finally said. 

My heart thumped excitedly, as if it were trying to jump out from between my ribs. 

"You're Joshua?" I cried.

Every face turned towards me.

"Oops, sorry," I said, embarrassed that I'd startled everyone. "He's Johanna's brother," I explained aloud.

"And this," my father said ruefully, "is my daughter, Nessie."

"Hi," I offered hopefully. 

Joshua only nodded. His face still betrayed no hint of an expression.

"He wants to see his sister." As he spoke Jacob looked as if he couldn't decide if this was a good idea or a bad one.

I knew how I felt, however. 

"I'm so glad you're here," I said. "Maybe she'll listen to you. She won't to me."

Esme smiled politely. It was impossible to ruffle my grandmother. She had been raised in a time when ladies wore hats and gloves and no stranger was ever turned away from the table. Even now, her instincts as a hostess always won out.

"You're very welcome here, Joshua," she said. "Come with me. I'll take you to her."

She led Joshua out of the room.

My mother shot an apprehensive look at my father, but he shook his head.

The four of us waited quietly until they had disappeared up the stairs.

"It's safe," my father finally said. "Esme is going to get Carlisle."

My mother relaxed slightly. "Where did you find him?"

"He found us," Jake said, pushing his hair out of his face. "He got within scent distance and asked for a...what was the word?"

"A parlay," my father supplied.

I frowned. "A what?"

"That's an old-fashioned word for a discussion, or a diplomatic conversation," my father explained. "From the French verb _parler_ , to speak."

Jake snorted. "French. Just what we need."

"Rosalie and Emmett didn't want to let him pass, but Nessie had told me Johanna had a brother. If this really is him, perhaps he can explain to us what is going on." My father looked solemn.

Esme returned a moment later, with Carlisle on her heels.

"What's happening?" I demanded.

"They're just talking. Or rather, Joshua is." My grandfather looked rumpled and unhappy. I knew he was incapable of being physically tried, but I suspected what was happening to his friend was taking its toll. 

I went to him and put my arms around his waist. He gave me an appreciative hug.

"She didn't say anything to him?" My mother asked.

"It was odd." Esme frowned slightly. "When we appeared Johanna just looked at him for a long moment. Then she said, "Don't you dare say ‘I told you so.'"

I looked up at Carlisle. "What did she mean, Grandpa?"

"I don't know, sweetheart. I'm afraid we're going to have to wait to find out."


	9. Deception

We didn't have to wait long. No more than twenty minutes passed before Joshua came back down the stairs.

"Johanna has agreed to sleep for a few hours," he told us. "Would you perhaps have some place quiet that she could lay down?"

"Of course," Esme said in relief. "She can have the guest room. I'll get her settled in." She hurried back upstairs.

In the awkward silence that followed the five of us-Mom, Dad, Carlisle, Jake, and I-stared at him.

"I'm sorry all of you have been put to so much trouble," Joshua finally said. "I'm afraid Johanna seldom thinks of the consequences of her actions."

From my spot next to Carlisle I bristled. "She hasn't done anything wrong."

My grandfather hushed me gently before turning back to the newcomer.

"You speak of her as if she was a child."

Joshua shrugged. "I am two hundred years old. To me, she _is_ a child."

Carlisle didn't bother pointing out that he was older than that, and still made an effort to treat everyone, even me, as his equal.

I wanted to like Joshua, I really did. 

But I didn't. And it was easy to see now why Johanna was so prickly about him. I couldn't imagine anyone less like her than this rather stiff, formal vampire with his old-fashioned black coat and superior attitude. 

"Lucas is the one who caused all this, not Johanna," I told him firmly. "If you're so upset, why aren't you out there looking for him?"

"Nessie," my father said in a warning tone.

"Hey, the kid's got a point," Jake said in my defense. 

He eyed Joshua suspiciously. "This Lucas guy went after your sister. You don't have a problem with that?"

"The situation is...complicated." Joshua folded his hands together and studied his long fingernails.

"Then I think perhaps you should sit down and explain it to us," Carlisle said. "A human has been bitten, and both your sister and my granddaughter put in harm's way. We do not want anyone else to get hurt."

With a sigh Joshua sat down in a chair opposite the rest of us.

"Has Lucas been hunting her?" My mother demanded abruptly. "Is that why he followed her to Forks?"

"Not exactly. Lucas followed her here because he believes she belongs to him now."

My father's elegant eyebrows arched in disgust. "Why would he believe that?"

For the first time Joshua's perfect poise faltered a bit. "Because I'm afraid I once told him she would."

We all stared at him in horror.

"How could you do such a thing?" My mother gasped. 

But I had a pretty good idea. 

"Johanna says you wish she'd never been born," I told him, shooting him my best steely-eyed glare.

The newcomer had the grace to look slightly hurt at the accusation. 

But my father was not fooled. He'd been probing the other vampire's mind, and he clearly wasn't pleased with what he was finding.

"That's true, isn't it?" He now demanded, narrowing his golden eyes. "That's why you agreed to give her to Lucas."

"No, no." Joshua shook his head. He sighed again.

"I can see I will have to go back much further if you are to understand." Johanna's brother looked over at me. "What has she told you about her parents?"

I shrugged. "Her mom died when she was born. And her father wasn't around to raise her. She didn't exactly say so, but I guess he had died, too." 

I resisted the urge to look over at my dad. He had been the one to extract that bit of information from Johanna's mind.

"Johanna's father was my creator." Joshua was speaking slowly and deliberately now, as if he was reconstructing carefully preserved memories. He probably was. Vampires had to work hard to retain and remember anything about their pre-transformation lives.

"His name was Erik. He was already hundreds of years old when I met him, and that was in the 18th Century. We traveled together for a time after I was transformed. He was very much like his daughter is now: intelligent, bold, and honest to a fault.

But Erik was also deeply...unhappy. I think his long life had begun to wear at him, and all the deaths he had caused increasingly troubled his conscience. We parted ways by mutual agreement around the time of your American Civil War."

We were all listening to the story. Esme had returned and was sitting on the arm of the sofa, next to her husband.

"Decades passed, but I still heard news of Erik here and there," Joshua continued. "I heard that he had stopped hunting-he was old enough by then to survive without blood if he chose to do so. Later I'd heard that he'd returned to the land of his birth, somewhere in Scandinavia. 

Then the news just stopped. It was as if he had simply disappeared.

As time wore on I became more and more concerned. But by then the Second World War was tearing Europe apart. I was here in America, and had to wait until the war ended before I could travel there and search for him.

It took me years to finally pick up his trail, and to track him to a small town on Norway's Fosen Peninsula." 

Joshua paused, shaking his head as he remembered. 

"Actually the place was barely even a town. It hugged a spit of land next to a fjord, and the wind never stopped blowing. The people eked out a living fishing and farming. It was late autumn then, and bonfires burned all night in the orchards to keep the young trees alive during the bitterly cold nights. 

Time there seemed to have stopped in the previous century. I found the villagers to be backwards, intensely religious, and deeply suspicious of outsiders. It was an odd place for a vampire to have settled.

Finally, one evening I at last found the shack where Erik had been living. It was outside of town, high on a bluff overlooking the fjord. There wasn't even a road. 

As soon as I reached it I could smell death."

At this point in the story my mother and father exchanged a glance and looked over at me. I scrunched down next to my grandfather, determined that they wouldn't take me out of the room just as Joshua's story was getting exciting.

"Inside the little shack I found my old friend. He was prostrate with grief. On the only table in the room was a coffin, and in the coffin was the body of a fair-haired young woman. 

I thought at first that Erik had killed her, and this was why he was grieving so. But I was puzzled. She had been carefully dressed and wrapped for her burial. Only her face and hands were exposed, but I could see no marks upon them.

Erik was almost incoherent. But finally I was able to understand that the young woman's name had been Johanna, that she'd died giving birth the day before, and that her child was now dying, too. 

Of course, I'd seen no immediate evidence of an infant. Searching the room I found it in a basket by the foot of the coffin. I'd at first taken it to be a bundle of rags. 

The infant was already larger than a newborn, but it was so weak it could barely turn its blond head. It looked at me with uncommonly intelligent blue eyes, and that's when I realized what it was."

"A hybrid," Carlisle supplied.

"Yes." Joshua nodded. "I had never heard of such a thing, and as far as I knew then it was the only one in existence. But I knew it had to be true. Unfortunately the child seemed certain to follow its mother to the grave.

My presence did seem to rouse Erik a bit. At last he insisted I help him carry the coffin back to the village in the dead of night. 

I asked him if there was not someone in the village who could claim the young woman, and he said there was not. So we buried her in an unmarked corner of the cemetery, where she would still be able to rest in hallowed ground. Erik seemed to feel that was very important."

I hadn't realized how closely I'd been listening until Joshua paused.

"Then what happened?" I asked breathlessly.

"We returned to the shack. Erik seemed calmer then, more himself. He asked me to stay with the infant. He took a kerosene lantern, and went out.

I waited. He did not return. The infant began making strange gasping sounds, as if it was struggling to breathe. I did not want to watch it suffering, so I went out in search of my friend.

The sun was starting to rise when, in the distance, I saw the unmistakable plume of whitish smoke. I ran towards it.

In an orchard I found the empty lantern next to an enormous bonfire. Erik had added fresh wood to it, and soaked his clothes with the kerosene. There was nothing left of my master except ashes that had quickly scattered in the endless wind."

"I'm so sorry," Esme said quietly, as if Joshua's bereavement had occurred yesterday instead of fifty years ago.

"Thank you," he said politely.

"So you kept his child," Carlisle suggested. His voice was solemn.

"At first I assumed it would die, as Erik had said. I did briefly consider snapping its neck and putting it out of its misery, but I did not have the heart to do so. I could not bear to remain in that awful place, so I took it with me, and fled. 

Shortly thereafter I discovered, quite by accident, that the child needed blood to survive."

"She bit you," I said sagely. That was the first thing I had done after my birth, too. 

"Once I knew what to feed it the child thrived. Its mother had been named Johanna, so that became the infant's name as well."

"How did you keep her hidden?" My mother asked.

"I decided it would be easier to conceal her in a large city. We traveled first to London, and then to New York. It soon became clear Johanna was growing much faster than a human child. I hoped she would be able to reach adulthood in safety. I was mistaken."

"Lucas?" Jacob asked.

Joshua nodded. "In New York I ran afoul of a group of vampires who accused me of hunting on their territory. Which I suppose was true, although I had not done so intentionally. Lucas was their leader. 

In life he had been a thief and a blackmailer. Those who knew him then said that he had been clever, and cruel, and quite possibly mad. I'm afraid immortality has not improved his character. He is not particularly old, or particularly strong. But he surrounds himself with larger, stronger vampires while he makes a living exploiting our desperate desire for secrecy."

Carlisle frowned. I knew why. Carlisle's disliked the Volturi, his former friends who created and carried out vampire law as they saw fit. But he also had a highly developed sense of justice.

My mother asked the question for him. "If Lucas is a criminal then why hasn't the Volturi dealt with him?" 

"Because no one has ever dared complain to them. Lucas targets mainly newborns, those who still have living family and friends who would be horrified to know what has happened to their loved one. Or families who know what happened but who want to conceal the news from others. People will pay dearly to keep such a secret."

"How horrible." Esme shuddered.

I had to agree. Even if Lucas hadn't bitten poor Matthew I'd still have hated him after hearing all this.

"For a time I was able to conceal Johanna from him," Joshua continued. "But one night he arrived unexpectedly and saw her. She was then a year or so younger than your Nessie is now, but he knew immediately he had something unusual on his hands. And to Lucas, the more unusual something is the more value it holds. He demanded that I give Johanna to him. He threatened to kill her, or, worse, expose her to the Volturi."

"So you agreed to hand her over to him," Jake said disgustedly.

"You must understand that I had no coven. There was no one who would speak for me or help me defend the child who was the last living link to my poor master. I had no choice but to strike a bargain with him to keep Johanna safe." 

Jacob looked uncomfortable. I knew he was remembering the veritable army of vampires and werewolves that had assembled to protect me from the Volturi. And even then it almost hadn't been enough. What chance would someone like Joshua have had, all by himself? 

"I insisted Lucas wait until Johanna was older. I picked what I thought then was a ridiculous number of years." Joshua looked bemused. "Fifty, actually. I was astounded when he agreed. I suppose I was hoping that as time passed Lucas would lose interest. I should have known better. Lucas had already fixated on her, and no amount of time was going to change his mind."

"Did Johanna know about this bargain?" My mother queried.

"Not until later, although I think she always suspected something of the kind." He shook his head. "She grew up so headstrong, so angry. At me, at her father, at the whole world. The older she got the more we quarreled. Finally, shortly after her seventh birthday, when she was fully grown, she ran off with a human boy. I did not see her for many years after that, and we've had only limited contact since then."

"And she'll be fifty-four next month," I reported.

"Yes. When she turned fifty Lucas visited her and demanded she keep the bargain I made under duress all those years ago. Johanna, being Johanna, refused. When he would not take ‘no' for an answer she ran. And since then she has kept moving from place to place, never settling down long enough for him to catch up to her."

"He wouldn't have caught up to her here if she hadn't wrecked her bike," Jake explained. "She's been trying to get out of here as quickly as possible. Guess now we know why."

"Yes, well, she wasn't quick enough, was she?" Joshua spoke more to himself than to any of us.

"Are you helping Lucas?" My father asked. I could tell he was trying to restrain himself, but the distaste he felt over what Joshua had done was still plain in his voice.

"Helping him? No. I had hoped to intervene. Lucas is not capable of seeing reason, but Johanna is."

Carlisle held up his hand before any of us could protest. 

"How many are there?"

"Lucas has brought four other vampires with him, besides Hugo. He knows _I_ will not raise a hand against my sister but," Joshua smiled humorlessly, "the others I cannot vouch for."

My father and Carlisle exchanged a measured look. Two vampires was one thing; six was something else entirely.

"We can take them," Jacob said confidently.

"We're short Alice and Jasper," Esme reminded him.

Joshua weighed in. "I believe that, after a few hours of sleep, Johanna will realize her only option is to agree to Lucas' terms."

"That's not acceptable," Carlisle said shortly. "We will find another way."

\---

I blinked my eyes open, and for a moment I wasn't sure where I was. Then I recognized the high shelves full of books, and the wide expanse of glass behind the bed. 

It was full dark outside now.

I was in my father's old room, in the only bed in my grandparents' house. Next to me Johanna was still sleeping soundly.

My father and grandfather had decided we would all be safer under one roof tonight.

I sat up and threw back the covers. Fortunately I had slept in my clothes, so I was able to quickly hop out of bed and put my ear to the almost-closed door.

In the hallway outside I could hear my mother and Rosalie speaking in low tones. I could just see them through the tiny gap.

"They won't take Matthew any farther than they have to for him to feed," Rosalie was explaining. "Emmett and Edward will make sure no one ambushes him while they're out there."

Matthew had woken up-and I had slept through it! That was just my luck. I hadn't expected to be allowed to be in the room, but I had wanted to be nearby. My only consolation was that they clearly hadn't woken Johanna either.

"Carlisle says the first thing Matthew did when he woke up was ask after Johanna and Nessie," my mother said sadly. "He thought they might still be in danger-he had no idea that was three days ago."

"His memory's going to be fuzzy," Rosalie said with a shrug. "And that's probably for the best."

"Probably," my mother agreed reluctantly. "I'm just glad that Carlisle was the one doing the explaining, and not me. I wouldn't even know where to begin."

"Matthew probably won't believe it himself, until he's killed something, or someone."

"Rosalie, don't joke about that."

"I'm not. I'm speaking from experience. You can explain away the not breathing and even your heart not beating if you try hard enough. Until you drink blood. Then you know for sure."

"He kept asking for Johanna," my mother continued. "I wish we had been allowed to wake her. I'm sure having her there would have made him feel more secure at such a terrible moment. I remember what a blessing it was for me to recognize Edward right away."

"It wouldn't have been safe, Bella, and you know it. It's not like they're husband and wife-they hardly know each other. He might just as easily have torn her head off. You don't have to be Jasper to figure that one out."

"I'm sure he would have known her," my mother countered.

"Well, at least that creepy brother of hers has gone. Lots of help he's been."

"He's gone to try and talk some of the others out of fighting. Their allegiance to Lucas is shaky, he says, so maybe luck will be on our side."

"It never has been before," my aunt said wryly.

Downstairs I could hear the front door open and close, and the sounds of footsteps. My father and uncle must have returned with Matthew.

I desperately wanted to see him, but I knew it wouldn't be safe. There was no being on earth stronger than a newborn vampire. And even if he'd just hunted, I might be too big a temptation for him to resist.

I closed the door firmly. Even if he could smell me, my family wouldn't let him get anywhere close to me.

I crawled back in bed and lay in the darkness for a long while. 

I listened to Johanna's steady breathing next to me. In the moonlight I could see that she already looked better than she had that afternoon. When Matthew saw her for the first time with his new eyes, she would be as beautiful as he remembered. If he remembered.

Unable to fall back asleep I rolled over onto my stomach so I could peer down through the oversized window. I could make out the trees, and the bushes, and after awhile I could even make out a large, lumbering shape moving through them, just beyond the clearing.

The wolf pack was still on duty.

When I could no longer hear movement I decided to sneak downstairs and find Jacob. He would be willing to fill me in on anything that had happened.

I opened the door cautiously. At the far end of the hall there was a small sliver of light from under the door to my grandfather's lab, and I could hear voices from there. No doubt the adults were all taking care of Matthew.

I grabbed my shoes and slipped down the stairs in my socks. As quietly as I could I opened the front door.

"Jake?" I called softy while I laced up my sneakers. "Jake, are you there?"

I frowned. Earlier he'd been able to hear me from here. But maybe it was Seth or Leah or one of the others patrolling close to the house.

I went down the stairs and closer to the trees.

I couldn't hear anything now except the wind rusting in the leaves. Whatever I had seen moving through the bushes was gone.

I suddenly realized I was probably not supposed to be outside on my own, certainly not in the middle of the night. I didn't want my parents to catch me outside. 

I'd been in enough trouble lately as it was.

I turned to go back inside.

And that was when I was grabbed from behind.


	10. Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Original chapter notes: Last two chapters, folks. Thanks for hanging in there!  
> To answer two reader’s questions: Yes, Edward can “hear” Nessie’s thoughts, but I don’t see him as omnipotent. As a father I like to think he consciously tries not to “hear” his daughter, in order to give her some privacy. Unfortunately this means he doesn’t always catch her before she gets into trouble. That is exactly what has happened here, because he and the rest of the Cullen family are distracted dealing with the newborn vampire on their hands. And as noamg pointed out, prolonged fasting does indeed damage a vampire’s mental capabilities. But all Joshua knows is that he’d heard that Johanna’s father, Erik, had at one point given up blood. Joshua doesn’t know, and therefore we don’t either, how long Erik stuck to that, or if it was even true.:)  
> Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

I had always known that vampires were strong. 

But until I'd been carried, kicking and biting, through the dark woods I'd never realized just how strong.

In the inky blackness I had felt my fists and feet connect with Hugo's oversized limbs. But it hadn't done me a bit of good. 

He had dumped me unceremoniously onto the floor of what looked like a rotted out shell of a barn. It had clearly been abandoned decades before. 

I could see strips of night sky through the holes in the roof. It smelled like wet straw and wood rot. One lone lit bulb hung from a ceiling joist, casting macabre shadows into the corners.

And now all I could do was sit there, watching Lucas pace up and down while Hugo and two other vampires stood waiting and watching. 

I was profoundly relieved that Joshua was not among them. I would have hated to see Johanna pitted against her brother.

In fact, now that I thought of it, Joshua had warned us that Lucas had brought four other vampires with him, not counting Hugo. So where were the other two? Were they out in the woods, or somewhere else entirely?

I was scared, but I felt even worse thinking about what my family must be going through. I couldn't believe now I'd fallen into so easy a trap. It was a little humiliating, to tell you the truth. 

I knew that they would already be looking for me, trying to pick up traces of my scent. I focused as hard as I could on my dad, hoping he'd be able to sense at least some of my thoughts. But since I didn't know how far we had come I wasn't sure if he'd be able to do so.

It was impossible to judge time accurately, but I reckoned an hour passed. Then another.

Lucas just kept pacing, up and down, his black coat billowing out behind him as he moved. He looked like a man possessed.

I remembered what Joshua had said about Lucas being mentally unstable even before his transformation. I pulled my legs close to my chest, trying not to draw his attention.

Unfortunately the other three vampires were growing bored and hungry. They began eyeing me with speculative interest. I knew I didn't smell exactly human, but I still smelled like food to the predators.

Hugo tried inching towards me, around his master.

In a split second Lucas had dropped into a crouch, hissing loudly. Hugo skittered backwards as if he's been stung.

"Don't get any ideas in that thick head of yours," Lucas said in his elegant voice. He stood straight and tall again as he spoke. "That child is bait, and I'll not have you damage her before I've gotten what I came for."

He looked down at me, his red eyes glowing like coals.

"Come here, little one," he crooned, holding out a hand.

In response I slid backwards a bit. I didn't want him speaking to me, let alone touching me.

That made him angry. In a second he was in front of me, lifting me off my feet by the front of my sweater. His face was in mine, his eyes wide and wild.

"You listen to me when I'm speaking to you!" He shook me hard enough that my teeth rattled. 

"OK," I stammered reluctantly.

That seemed to soothe him. He set me down and put both his hands on my shoulders. 

"That's a good little hybrid," he said mockingly.

My eyes must have widened a bit, because he laughed his cruel laugh.

"What, you think I can't smell what you are?" As is to prove his point he leaned down and sniffed deeply at my hair. I tried to cringe away, but his grip was too strong.

"I've memorized that smell, you know. I did so when I first saw Johanna, when she was younger than you are now," he told me conversationally.

"You shouldn't have come here," I told him defiantly. "She doesn't want you."

"What Johanna wants, or doesn't want, is immaterial," he told me, his face still just inches from mine. "We had a bargain, and she will live up to her end."

"She'll run away from you again."

"And I'll catch up to her again. I'm a patient man, but even I do have my limits." 

He let go of me abruptly, and I tumbled backwards.

The vampires laughed. I was definitely beginning to see why Johanna had come to prefer humans.

"Peter, Wilhelm," Lucas said as he turned back to his followers. "I want both of you out in the woods. If anyone other than Johanna herself comes near here, take their heads off."

The other two nodded enthusiastically, and went out the door into the night. 

I listened closely, but heard nothing. If my father and grandfather, or the wolf pack, were out there they were keeping a safe distance.

Hugo looked sulky that he hadn't been sent outside, too. He looked like an oversized kindergartener. 

Lucas sighed. "You'll have to excuse Hugo," he told me. "I'm afraid he was of limited intelligence even when he was alive. But his brawn does come in handy."

"Lucas!"

The voice rang out clear and strong from outside. I recognized it instantly.

"Johanna, no!" I called back, only to have Lucas quickly silence me with a hand clamped over my mouth.

"Ah ah ah, mustn't spoil the fun," he scolded.

He handed me bodily over to Hugo. 

"Keep _that_ quiet," he ordered.

Hugo obligingly clamped his own meaty hand over my mouth. I bit him with my sharp teeth, but he just pressed down harder. It was a struggle to breath.

Johanna appeared in the doorway. 

She was still wearing the same clothes she had been in for days, and her hair hung in a tangle down her back. But her eyes gleamed and there was a flush across her cheeks. Anger, apparently, had been the key to snapping her out of her zombie-like state.

"Let the kid go," she told him. "She's got nothing to do with all this."

Luca pretended to contemplate this for a moment.

"Sorry, no. I know you Johanna, better than you do yourself. The only thing that motivates you is fear of what might happen to your precious humans. What else would have brought you out from your little fortress?"

"I mean it, Lucas." She stepped closer, holding out both her hands. "I'll go with you. I won't give you any more trouble. Just put her down."

"Joshua said you'd gotten attached to it," Lucas sneered, gesturing to where I dangled in Hugo's grip.

I tried to mumble something insulting.

But Johanna didn't even look at me. "Be quiet, Nessie," she ordered.

"Yes, do be quiet," Lucas echoed with a laugh. 

He moved closer to her. "So I'm to believe you're ready to give up, hmm? Forgive me for doubting you, but I've heard that before."

"I know you have. And I'm sorry." I could tell it was taking Johanna every bit of her self-control to speak so calmly.

"Really? How sorry?"

They stood toe-to-toe now.

Johanna stared straight ahead at him.

"As sorry as you want me to be," she said mechanically.

I almost gagged.

Lucas tilted his head to one side, considering this.

"A refreshing attitude, my dear, certainly. But not good enough, I'm afraid."

With lightening speed his hand lashed out and caught her across the face. The force of the blow sent her skidding across the floor, splintering the old wood boards.

I took advantage of the moment to bite down again, hard. This time my teeth hit bone.

Hugo yelped in pain and shook me off like I was a puppy. I hit the floor and immediately tried to rush to my friend.

But Lucas was in front of me first, hissing and pacing back and forth like a tiger. There was no way past him.

Johanna was on her feet again, and she flew at him with all her strength. They collided, but she was only able to pin him for a few seconds. The full-blooded vampire quickly rolled and shook her loose again.

Hugo hovered in the background, clearly unsure whether to help his master or pursue me.

I changed direction and rushed for the door.

"Stop her!" Lucas cried.

I had nearly made it when an enormous hand caught me by the scruff of the neck and tossed me backwards.

For a moment I was soaring though the air...

...and then I hit the floor with enough force to knock all the breath from my body. My ears rang, and even though I could hear the sounds of fighting in the background I could barely raise my head.

Lucas flung Johanna away from him again, and advanced on me, Hugo a step or two behind him.

"Stop."

I didn't recognize the voice at first, and my vision was still swimming from the impact. I shook my head to clear it.

Matthew was standing in the room.

But it wasn't the old Matthew, the human Matthew. This was the new version, the one I hadn't yet seen.

His skin was pale and lineless, without a trace of his former tan. His eyes shone like two rubies in his otherwise expressionless face. 

I had never seen a newborn vampire before. He was beautiful and terrible all at once.

"Stop this." It seemed to be taking him some effort to speak, but even his voice sounded different. Clearer, and somehow more musical.

Lucas stopped in mid-stride, so Hugo did, so, too.

"Well, well, if it isn't my latest creation!" Lucas clapped his hands in glee. "I assumed they had destroyed you."

"No."

"How very foolish of them." Lucas shook his head. "But then I had heard the, ahem, _vegetarian_ life-style makes one soft and weak. Tell me, my son, have you been hunting yet?"

Matthew stood as still as a statue while his creator looked him up and down.

"Oh, I can see you have, but only animal blood, I imagine." The corners of Lucas' cruel mouth turned downward in disgust. "How can they endure it? To forgo the intoxicating scent of humans, the screams, the gush of warm blood..."

Almost as if he wasn't aware of it Matthew moved forward.

"Matthew." I heard Johanna's voice from somewhere behind me. It was weak. I knew she was hurt.

"Yes, you understand what I'm saying," Lucas said to him with a ferocious smile. "You understand those urges now, don't you?"

Matt didn't respond. He just stared at the older vampire.

After a long moment he just nodded mutely.

"Well, then, let's rectify the situation." 

Before I had time to react Lucas seized me in his arms. I felt something hard and impossibly sharp brush against my hairline. Liquid, sticky and warm, began to trickle down my face.

He dropped me, and I put a hand to my head. 

It came away slick and red.

I had never seen my own blood before. Lucas had used his teeth to tear open the otherwise impenetrable skin of my forehead.

My half-human blood smelled like copper and salt. My stomach rolled over at the scent, and for a moment I swayed a bit.

But I was in much greater danger than just passing out.

The newborn vampire was now fixated on me. His eyes seemed to grow redder, then blacker as the pupils expanded until they nearly filled the iris.

I stared in horror at my bloody hand. I could only imagine what I looked and smelled like to him.

He started approaching me in a half-crouch. 

I knew a hunting stance when I saw one.

I closed my eyes. _Mom, Dad, I'm sorry,_ I thought.

"Matthew, stop." Johanna spoke again, clearer, stronger. She must have gotten to her feet.

"Matthew, listen to me. You know the sound of my voice."

For a split second the newborn seemed to hesitate.

"That is Nessie," Johanna told him, her voice gentle but ringing. "You don't want to hurt Nessie."

"Smell the blood," Lucas urged him in a louder voice. "Your prey is right there. Go and feed. Make the hunger go away."

The vampire was getting closer. I could sense it, but I didn't dare open my eyes.

"You're better than this," Johanna spoke again. "I know you, Matthew. You're stronger than your hunger. Don't let it win. Don't let _him_ win. Please, Matthew."

When no fatal blow came, I cautiously opened one eye.

The newborn was only a few feet away from me, but he had stopped moving. Half his body was twisted toward me, following his hunger, the other half towards Johanna. He looked like a man in agony.

Lucas laughed.

I think now, looking back on it, that was the moment Lucas sealed his own fate.

Matthew swung around with vampire speed and grabbed Lucas in both of his arms.

Lucas screamed, but the sound was quickly lost in the crunching of bone and rending of tendons.

Hugo staggered backward, as if momentarily unable to process what he was seeing. Then he ran out into the night.

Matthew kept squeezing. The sound was ghastly, wet and squelching like a boot in mud.

I heard it when the older vampire's spine snapped in two.

Then suddenly I was in Johanna's arms and being swept away from the horrible scene.

\---

The next thing I knew water was being quickly but efficiently wiped over my face.

I opened my eyes to see that I was lying on a bed of moss next to a trickling stream. Johanna had torn off the bottom of her shirt and was using it to wash away the remaining blood.

Dizzily I put a hand to my head.

"It's already stopped, kid," she counseled. "Lie still. You'll be fine in a moment."

Now that I was feeling more myself I could hear movement all around me in the trees. The whole forest seemed to be alive with activity.

"Nessie? Nessie?" I heard my mother call. I don't think I'd ever heard a sweeter sound.

"She's here," Johanna called back.

A moment later my mother was kneeling next to me, her golden eyes on fire.

"Nessie, are you all right?" With a frown she sniffed me carefully, and then glanced down at the rag in Johanna's hand. "She was bleeding?"

She glanced back down at me. "You were bleeding? How..."

"It's OK, Mom," I croaked. "It's stopped now."

"Baby," she said softly, scooping me up into her arms. "Oh, my baby."

"Is everything all right?" I heard Esme saying.

"Nessie's fine," Johanna told her.

"Bella, she's all right," Esme said in her soft voice. "You don't want to squash her."

My mother laughed shakily and let me go.

Johanna got to her feet. "I have to go back."

She looked as bad as I felt, but she still darted back into the woods.

I tried to stand, and almost fell.

"Easy, sweetheart," my mother said.

"Matthew," I managed to get out. "I have to see Matthew."

Reluctantly my mother and grandmother supported me so I could walk. Up ahead I could see a faint glow on the horizon. I wondered if it could possibly be morning yet. 

But as we got closer I realized the glow I was seeing was not that of the sun, but of flames. 

The barn was burning.

Outside I could make out the shapes of my father and grandfather, with Matthew between them.

Johanna was speaking to them, but she only had eyes for Matthew.

"That was an amazing thing you did," I could hear her saying as we approached. "I've never seen anybody resist the temptation like that. Not ever."

Matthew's face remained expressionless.

"I mean, seriously," she said to Carlisle. "You should have seen it."

Carlisle nodded. He was looking at his former protégé with a mixture of pity and wonder. "I understand," he said quietly.

Johanna turned back to Matthew.

"You were incredible," she told him. And, before my father or Carlisle could stop her, she put her arms around his neck and embraced him.

That was a dangerous thing to do. But Matthew, although he stiffened at her touch, did not pull away.

Johanna stepped back, looking a little embarrassed. Carlisle and my father just stared at her.

"Dad! I called.

My father's eyes lit up, and he rushed to me, scooping me into his arms.

He buried his face in the spot where my shoulder met my neck.

"Are you sure you're OK?" He asked in my ear.

"I am now," I said with a faint smile.

"Good. Because I'm locking you in your room until you're thirty," he growled.

Behind us the fire was growing higher and hotter as it consumed the dry wood. It was Lucas' funeral pyre, lit to destroy whatever was left of his body.

I lifted my head a bit. "The others got away, Dad."

"No, Nessie, they didn't." He nodded his head in the direction of the tree line. "Jacob and the rest of the wolf pack are out there. So are your Aunt Rosalie and Uncle Emmett."

"Oh." I nodded in understanding. Those other two vampires-and Hugo-would be no match for my friends and relatives.

I relaxed a bit, and suddenly felt how exhausted I was. Every square inch of my body hurt.

"Let's get you home," my grandfather counseled. "I think we've all had enough excitement for one evening."

I nodded, and laid my head again my father's chest. Even though I was too big, and getting bigger ever day, I still let him carry me.

I fell asleep right there in my father's arms. 


	11. Home

When I woke up the next morning, the first thing I did was hop out of bed and look in the mirror. I carefully lifted my bangs and examined my forehead.

There was nothing there. No marks, no scars, no trace of Lucas' teeth marks-nothing. The skin was smooth and white, as it always had been.

I quickly pulled on a shirt and a pair of jeans, and went out into the living room.

There I got my second surprise of the morning.

Aunt Alice was sitting in the chair by the fireplace, beaming at me. She stood up as soon as she saw me and held out her arms.

"Aunt Alice!" I ran to her and threw my arms around her. "When did you get here?"

She laughed. "A few hours ago. It's after ten--you've been asleep forever! But I promised your parents I wouldn't wake you."

I broke the hug so I could see her face. "Where are Mom and Dad?"

"With Carlisle and Esme. There are some tough decisions that need to be made."

"I want to be there, Alice. They shouldn't leave me out of things."

She put her hands on either side of my face. "All right, then. We'll go down together, hmm?"

She held my hand as we walked down the path. The sky was a flat grey, meaning a storm was on its way.

"I know your parents have already said this to you, Nessie," she said softly. "But you really need to stop scaring us like that."

"I didn't mean to. I honestly thought it was Jacob or Seth out there."

"I know that now. But you have to understand that since I can't see you clearly the bits and pieces I _do_ see can be that much more alarming. There we were, your Uncle Jasper and I, having a nice quiet evening in the hotel room and all of a sudden you're in danger, _again_ , and I don't know how or why or where! It's enough to make me want to yank my hair out! And then I couldn't get anyone on the phone..."

"They were all out looking for me by then," I apologized.

"So I said to Jasper, ‘Forget it-we're catching the next flight down.' But we still didn't get here in time to be any help."

I shook my head. "You didn't really miss that much, Alice. Thanks to Matthew. I guess in all the commotion we forgot about him. But he probably followed Johanna's scent to that old barn. If he hadn't arrived when he did..."

Alice's jaw tightened. "I wish I _had_ been here. I would have ripped Lucas' head off myself."

I had never seen my sweet, gentle aunt look as vampire-like as she did just then. But a moment later her expression softened again.

"And Jasper's upset he missed all the excitement. Emmett is never going to let him live that down." She sighed theatrically.

Carlisle and Esme's house was before us now, and we went up the stairs together. 

In the living room, to my great surprise, I saw Joshua sitting on the sofa opposite my parents and grandparents. It looked as if the adults had been in deep discussion about something.

"It's all right," my father said softly before I had a chance to speak out loud. "Joshua is just here to fill in some of the blanks about last night."

Alice and I went to stand quietly to one side so the conversation could continue.

Joshua spared us barely a glance before he turned his attention back to Carlisle.

"As I was saying, Mikhail and Edgar fortunately saw reason and chose not to become involved."

Wanting to be closer, I sat down on the floor by my mother's feet. She placed a gentle hand on the top of my head. 

From the direction of the conversation I gathered that Mikhail and Edgar were the two other vampires Lucas had brought with him to Forks, the two I hadn't seen.

"And they do not wish to pursue the matter further?" Carlisle spoke softly, but with a calm authority that made it clear he was speaking on behalf of our family.

"No." Joshua smoothed the lapels of his dark coat. "They feel that this time Lucas took things too far. He overstepped his bounds in threatening your coven's offspring, and that's what got him killed. They harbor no grudge. They only wish your assurance of safe passage out of the area. They will return to New York, and I will go with them."

"Don't you want to stay here for awhile?" I blurted before anyone could stop me.

He looked at me, his red eyes calm. "I see no reason why I would."

"But..." 

I was about to ask if he didn't think his sister might need him, but my grandmother hushed me instead.

"That's enough, Nessie," Esme said. "If Joshua wishes to leave then we really shouldn't detain him." 

I bit my lip. 

"Wow, has the living room always been downstairs?" Johanna appeared at the foot of the stairs, holding on to the railing with one hand and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes with the other. 

Apparently I wasn't the only one who had overslept.

She looked a little shaky from the events of the previous night, and she was still in the same clothes. But she smiled when she saw me.

"Morning, kid."

"Hey, Johanna. Where's Matthew? Can I see him?" I demanded.

My father and mother glanced at each other. It was my mother who spoke. 

"He's upstairs with Emmett and Jasper, sweetheart. I think it would be better if you gave him some space today."

Johanna looked solemn, but she didn't contradict my mother's pronouncement.

"He was really brave," I told to my friend. 

We exchanged a steady gaze.

"I know," she said.

Carlisle stood. "Johanna, your brother is leaving us now."

For the first time she glanced briefly at Joshua. She shrugged her shoulders slightly.

"Yeah, that's what I assumed."

Joshua said nothing in response.

Carlisle held out his hand to me. 

"Nessie, I want to take another look at your forehead and make sure everything's all right. Edward, Bella, let's all go in the kitchen where the light is better."

As I took his hand, I couldn't help but notice everyone suddenly had someplace to be. Esme quietly excused herself, and Alice mumbled something about checking on Jasper. My parents followed me into the kitchen.

My grandfather picked me up and set me on the edge of the table, so he could closely examine my hairline. 

I knew he wouldn't find anything, just as I hadn't. But I suddenly understood that this was his excuse to leave the room and give Johanna and Joshua some privacy.

I also thought it was silly to pretend. We would be able to hear every word they said anyway.

There was a long, awkward silence in the living room. Even though I could no longer see the two, I could imagine both Johanna and her brother standing on opposite sides of the room, each warily eyeing the other.

"I will accompany Mikhail and Edgar back to New York," Joshua finally said.

"I know."

There was another exceptionally long silence.

"You will...take care of yourself?" For the first time, Joshua's voice seemed to have softened, just a bit.

"I always do. Brother." I could almost see Johanna's lop-sided grin.

After that I didn't hear anything else, except eventually the sound of the front door opening and closing. A moment later Johanna came around the corner into the kitchen.

"I wouldn't bother with that," she said, indicating Carlisle's "examination" of me. "That kid has one hard head."

The adults might not have known how to respond, but I did.

"And _that_ ," I pronounced loudly, "was the lamest goodbye I ever heard!"

Everyone stared at me for a moment. Three pairs of golden eyes and one pair of blue ones were fixed upon me.

And then Johanna laughed. It was one of her genuine, throaty laughs, and everyone quickly relaxed at the sound. 

She was still laughing when she went back upstairs.

\---

"I think this sucks," I complained to my Aunt Rosalie as I followed her out to the garage.

"But you know why it has to happen this way, right?"

I dropped my head down a bit. "Yeah, I guess."

Three days had passed since Joshua and the other vampires had left. Every night my father and uncles patrolled our woods, and the wolf pack did the same closer to town.

It appeared Joshua had been as good as his word and they were out of the area. To tell you the truth, I think Emmett and Jasper were a little disappointed. But they hid it well.

"Where is this place again?" I asked my aunt. 

I jumped in the passenger seat of the SUV while she slid behind the wheel. We were only bringing it around to the front of the house, but I wasn't going to be left out of anything this time.

"Up in the mountains," she explained, flicking her hair over her shoulder as she backed out the heavy vehicle. "About an hour from the closest town. They'll need a 4-wheel drive to get up there."

I mulled this over on the brief drive. 

For his own peace of mind Matthew had asked to be moved someplace as far away from humans as possible. I, of course, had confidence in his ability to withstand temptation. 

But my grandfather had agreed with him.

"You have to understand, Nessie," he had told me, "that Matthew is, in his heart, at least, still a physician. And a physician's first and most important rule is to do no harm. Matthew made an exception in Lucas' case, and he's coming to accept that. But I don't think he could bear it if he hurt anyone else, even accidentally."

Carlisle was taking him to a cabin he and Esme owned. Esme said it was really basic, only one room, and more or less how the pioneers who had built it had left it. My grandparents had been planning on restoring it into something grander, but they never had. And Matthew apparently didn't care.

My grandfather was going to stay with him for as long as it took Matthew to adjust to his new surroundings. After that the newborn would be on his own. Once winter settled in and the mountain roads became impassible it would be almost impossible for a human to reach him, even if they knew where he was.

We pulled up to the front of the house. Emmett opened up the back of the SUV to start loading it. Esme and Alice had been busy, purchasing warm clothing and small household items Matthew would probably never use.

Matthew was standing on the stairs with my parents and Jasper. Jasper had been keeping a close eye on Matthew since he had returned. My quiet uncle did not trust newborns, even the one that had spared his niece's life.

It wasn't anything personal, my mother had explained. Jasper had just had a lot of negative experiences with them in the past.

"As far as anyone here knows you've been sent down to San Francisco for treatment," Carlisle was explaining to Matt now. "Charlie has been spreading the rabies story around town, and no one who saw the bites disputes it. You'll obviously be on official leave from the hospital while you're ill."

Matthew's mouth quirked to one side. It wasn't a smile-he hadn't smiled since it had happened-but it was a start.

"And then?" He asked.

"Let's just take things one step at a time," Carlisle told him.

"Mom, where's Johanna?" I asked.

"I haven't seen her yet today. I think she might have gone down to see Jake."

"What, now? She wouldn't do that," I protested. "She wouldn't leave without saying goodbye to Matt."

"It's OK, Nessie," Matthew said. It was the first time he had spoken directly to me. 

"No, it's not," I said loudly.

"Nessie," my Aunt Alice called. "Come and help me choose which set of drapes to send."

Grumbling, I walked back around to the trunk. Emmett was waiting patiently while Alice and Esme dug through their shopping bags.

"What do you think, sweetheart?" Alice held up a set of packaged drapes in each hand. "Solid color or stripes? I'm thinking Matthew's more of a solid color type of guy, but I don't know..."

Esme was frowning. "I'm just hoping that the water in the cabin is still on. If not Carlisle will have to have someone come and fix it before the first hard freeze."

"C'mon, you guys, I'm really upset here!" I stamped my foot childishly. "I could strangle Johanna, I really could."

"Nessie," Esme scolded softly. "Johanna has to make her own choices in life. You can't make them for her."

Alice only smiled mysteriously.

I frowned at her, and that's when I recognized the sound of a growling, well-tuned engine coming up the drive.

A few moments later Matthew's vintage Impala pulled in. The black paint was glistening, as if it had just been waxed.

Emmett whistled. "That is one cherry car," he said approvingly.

The engine shut off, and Johanna got out from behind the wheel. With her long-legged stride she was next to me in a moment.

"What's with the face, kid?"

I opened and closed my mouth. Then I opened it again.

"Where were you?"

"Had an errand to run," she said serenely. She held up the car keys. "As you can see."

Alice held up the drapes again. "Johanna? The solid or the stripes?"

"The solid color ones," Johanna said quickly. She picked up a bag, and the loading resumed. After a few moments Emmett was able to close the tailgate-but just barely.

"You ladies really need to learn how to travel light," he laughed. "He won't cook, he won't sleep-he doesn't need any of this."

Alice just smiled more widely.

"Alice?" I asked tentatively.

She held a finger up to her lips.

We rejoined the rest of the group to say our goodbyes. All except for Johanna, who was digging around in the Impala's trunk. I suspect she couldn't yet bring herself to face Matthew.

"Take care of yourself," Esme told him in her gentle voice. "And if you ever need a casserole, let me know."

I think Matthew almost laughed at that.

"Thank you for saving Nessie." My mother took each of Matt's hands in her own. "That was an amazing thing you did."

My father put an arm around her shoulders. "It was. Thank you."

Emmett, Rosalie, and Jasper all agreed.

I heard the car trunk slam, and a few minutes later Johanna was standing at the foot of the stairs. 

"Ready to go?" She asked.

I realized she now had on her leather jacket, and a duffle bag was slung over her shoulder.

"Where are you going?" I demanded.

"With him." She pointed her finger at Matthew. "It's cool-it's all worked out."

Everybody looked astonished. 

Everyone, that is, except Alice. She just looked smug.

Carlisle turned to his former colleague. "Is this true?"

"Yes. We discussed it last night." He looked down at his feet. "I feel like I still don't know what I'm doing most of the time. And you shouldn't have to stay with me," he told Carlisle.

"Whereas I don't have any place in particular to be. And I'm an expert," Johanna said firmly. "What could be better? Now we'd better hit the road or it'll be dark by the time we get there."

Carlisle and Esme exchanged a long look. 

"Are you sure this is what you want?" Esme asked the younger woman.

"Yes." As if to illustrate her point, Johanna opened the back door of the SUV and tossed in her bag.

"And you?" Carlisle asked Matthew.

"Yes," he said softly.

"But what about your motorcycle, Johanna? You love that bike, and you can't take it with you up into the mountains," I asked.

Johanna slid into the back seat, moving over to make room for Matthew.

"It's with Jacob. He'll take good care of it, make sure it stays in running condition."

"Oh."

Carlisle was kissing Esme goodbye, walking around to the driver's side door.

The engine started, and my mother moved me back a few feet. Rosalie and Emmett had already gone inside.

"Wait, though! What about Matthew's car?" I called.

A moment later something hard and metallic landed in my hands. I looked down to find the car keys in my fist.

"You can look after it, can't you, kid?" Johanna called back. "In a year or two you'll be big enough to drive it yourself." 

"I can't keep it!" I squeaked.

"Really, Matthew," my father began cautiously.

Matthew's pale face appeared in the window, but he looked only at me. 

"Take good care of it for me, Nessie. I'll be back to get it soon."

The SUV pulled away, and I was left standing there.

I looked down at the keys in my hands.

"I have...a car? That is so...COOL!"

"Edward, do something," my mother said.

He quickly scooped the keys out of my hands. 

"You'll be big enough to drive that car someday, Nessie. But today isn't it."

"Ah, Dad, c'mon..."

"No arguing," my mother said firmly.

I sighed and watched as my parents, Jasper, and Esme turned to go back into the house.

Soon only my Aunt Alice and I were standing there. 

From the other side of the driveway the Impala's chrome shone temptingly in the filtered sunlight.

She put an arm around me.

"You knew about this, didn't you?"

"The car?" She said innocently. "No, that was a surprise."

"You know what I mean, Alice."

We started walking back to the house.

"They're going to be fine, Nessie. Don't you worry."

"'They'?" I echoed. "They're a ‘they' now?"

"That's what I see."

I frowned. 

"Alice, you can't see Johanna's future clearly, any more than you can see mine. "

"True," she chortled. "But I saw _Matthew's,_ silly girl."

"Oh. Yeah. OK, I'm stupid."

"No, you're not. You're perfect," she told me with a laugh. "Now come inside and see the cutest outfit I found for you at the wilderness store. It's got fleece lining! And a hat!"

I groaned, but I obediently followed Alice back into the house.

The end.


End file.
